i wouldnt say he is awful. but terribly inconsistent. you never know what you'll get from him, which is very frustrating to fans. any time he is back there punting, i hold my breath. yikes. another shank OR what a great punt OB at the 5 like he did in the cleveland game. Lam
We also gotta give Brant Boyer some credit. He's back for his 7th season with the Jets. Several coaching regimes have kept Boyer as our ST Coordinator. He's supposed to be the best in the league. Hearing from Mann that Boyer has them practice the on-sides kick every week from different situations was pretty cool. Plus Boyer had them coached up on the fake punt too. And his kick-off and punt coverages are really good. Lot of us didn't want to waste a roster spots on Justin Hardee and WR Smith, but we did due to their Teams contributions. I guess we all got schooled a bit on how really important Teams can be, and why a good GM will always listen to his Teams Coor and keep a few roster spots open just for him. We've been kinda lucky in this regard with Westhoff and now Boyer. I recall reading the Mike Westhoff demanded from the HC to have any player on the roster he wanted to play special teams. I think I remember Revis out there returning kicks/punts a few times under Westhoff!
Braden Mann is the Jets punter. But he did a couple of extra things in Sunday’s stunning comeback victory over the Browns that helped him earn AFC special teams player of the week. In the first quarter, Mann executed a successful fake punt with a 17-yard pass to receiver Jeff Smith that kept New York’s drive going. Eventually the Jets scored a touchdown that tied the game 7-7. Then after quarterback Joe Flacco‘s 66-yard touchdown to receiver Corey Davis late in the fourth quarter, Smith executed a successful onside kick that gave the Jets the opportunity to win the game. They did it with Flacco’s 15-yard touchdown pass to Garrett Wilson. Mann is the first Jets punter since 2015 to earn special teams player of the week honors.
It is kinda funny that Mann went from having a terrible week at doing his actual job, punting, to 1 week later having an incredible week doing things that punters dont normally do (onside kick, pass completion) It would be like if Zach Wilson followed up his 4 INT passing performance with a fumble recovery for a touchdown and a game winning field goal kick the next week
Redemption is sweet. Even if you didnt know he was dealing with an injury, so many ignorant posts above. Props to those who understood exactly why there was no way the Jets were letting go of Mann. Said it before- there’s few if any punters that bring as much to the table. He’s a big part of the “new” Jets makeup. And props to our vastly improved punt coverage unit. I think we were -2 yds today. That’s great! His first year we were pretty awful- i think in part due to his not great hang time. i think we’ve gone from allowing 12yds per punt return to 10.5, to about 6.
