Bollinger Bowl XV - Eagles at Jets: In-depth analysis (Special Teams)

We've been breaking down the final preseason game. Earlier, we broke down the offense and defense. Now we wrap up with a look at the special teams.

Let's review the key contributions...

Return game - Don't put all your Gregs in one basket

Greg Dortch seems to be the team's choice for punt returner, but he worryingly muffed one last night, although he was able to fall on it.

Tim White and Deontay Burnett also got reps as the punt returner but White was stopped almost immediately three times. Burnett saw one go out of bounds and the other was a fair catch, but it's valuable for him to show he can be an emergency option to catch a punt if the team will carry him as their backup in the slot.

Trenton Cannon got to return one kickoff but was stopped at the 20.

The blocking was poor for the second week in a row with Marcus Cooper missing one and Mark Myers twice burned by the gunner.

Kicking game - Failer Bertolet

Kicker Taylor Bertolet had a disaster as he missed three of his five field goals. Yes, all the misses were from at least 49 yards, but that's still not good enough.

Adam Gase said that some players getting on the field late was partly to blame, calling it a distraction, but if Bertolet can't deal with that, it's hardly encouraging in terms of how he might handle real game duress. As for whoever it was that got on the field late, they may have damaged their own chances too.

Expect the Jets to claim the best available kicker that gets cut this weekend - or maybe even more than one so they can battle each other for the role.

In terms of the punter role, it's clearly going to be Lachlan Edwards again because Matt Darr hasn't once served as the holder in preseason, whereas Edwards has done it 17 times.

To their credit, I don't think either of them has shanked a punt all preseason and if Darr gets a job elsewhere, he probably deserves it. In this game, Darr got most of the work, perhaps in an effort to showcase him as a goodwill gesture and his numbers were solid. Edwards put his lone punt inside the 20 too.

Kick coverage - A Blake in the grass

Perhaps by design, there wasn't much for the coverage unit to do this week. Three of the four punts were downed or out of bounds and two of the three kickoffs went for touchbacks.

On the two that were returned, Doug Middleton and Blake Cashman made excellent plays in coverage to make the tackle.

Harvey Langi and Quincy Adeboyejo each downed a punt, although the credit should really go to Charone Peake and Arthur Maulet who got downfield first to be in position to down the ball if it rolled towards the goal line.

That's it for this week's game. If you'd like us to cover anything in more detail during the week, please let us know.