If the Bills ran that fake punt...

[cocamide]

I would be pissed off if our team ran an awesomely designed fake punt in a preseason game. That punt only helped our team by making them more aware of the crazy stuff that can happen at any given moment. It should keep them on their toes when they see anything unusual. You can bet that Bobby April will have someone assigned to break the punter's leg if we ever see a man motioning back on a punt.

[ddaryl]

I thought it was ******ed of the TITANS to run that play in preseason. That is unless they run it a few more times and cause the opposing team to overreact and run into the kicker more often during the season... the its pure genius

[cocamide]

I thought it was ******ed of the TITANS to run that play in preseason. That is unless they run it a few more times and cause the opposing team to overreact and run into the kicker more often during the season... the its pure genius

That would certainly be an interesting wrinkle to the play. Just have the guy go in motion but fake the fake and actually punt it hoping for a roughing the punter call. It runs the risk of injuring the punter, though.

[psubills62]

The thing is, there's a lot of things you can do with one play. He could actually hand it off to the guy, or the punter could run a short ways and throw the ball.

I just think of the Boise State bowl game win over Oklahoma. The statue of liberty play was one they had run before, except they passed it to the group formation and gotten a TD. Instead against Oklahoma they faked the throw (because Oklahoma knew what should have been coming) and handed it off.

The Titans could easily put a couple of wrinkles in that play to make it work during the regular season. I don't think it's a big deal.

[jamze132]

I would be pissed off if our team ran an awesomely designed fake punt in a preseason game. That punt only helped our team by making them more aware of the crazy stuff that can happen at any given moment. It should keep them on their toes when they see anything unusual. You can bet that Bobby April will have someone assigned to break the punter's leg if we ever see a man motioning back on a punt.
I agree to an extent. And your theory about our players now being on their toes is dead on, but the problem lies with the players being mental midgets who have tunnel vision on almost every play.

[T-Long]

They ran it b/c that guy isn't going to make the team. Fisher even said that later on. Granted, running trick plays in preseason is stupid, but I guarantee you they don't run that again. Could they run that same formation and hand it off? Absolutely. But their 1st string punter won't be doing that in the regular season.

[cocamide]

I agree to an extent. And your theory about our players now being on their toes is dead on, but the problem lies with the players being mental midgets who have tunnel vision on almost every play.

True. I guess we got a taste of our own medicine from the Seattle game last year. At least we only got embarrassed during the preseason.

[chernobylwraiths]

Add to that the safety at the end. Oh goodie, they won a meaningless game, meanwhile their special teams gets no practice in a real game type situation.

[billsfanone]

I don't give a flying crap about the fake punt or that it burned us like that. I'm actually glad something like that happened to teach them a lesson.

[jcdavey]

I thought it was ******ed of the TITANS to run that play in preseason. That is unless they run it a few more times and cause the opposing team to overreact and run into the kicker more often during the season... the its pure geniusif you listened to fisher, his excuse for running it was perfect

he said hentrick will never ever run that in a regular season or playoff game, and hentrick's their regular punter

if anything, this backup punter just put a nice highlight on his audition reel

[DraftBoy]

It makes the opponents review the tape of it and at least spend meeting time schemeing it just in case. That's why he runs them, he runs them every preseason. He's been doing it for a while now. Its not a secret, we knew coming in we'd almost certainly see a fake of some sort on ST.

[cocamide]

At least their special teams play didn't involve a forward lateral this time.

[Mitchell55]

I still dont get why everyone is bashing the players for not stopping the play. Its the last thing you expect in a preseason game because the team that runs it has to be pretty dumb enough to run a great play in preseason

[trapezeus]

of course we'd be pissed if the bills ran that play. because the bills seemingly have a knack of designing a play that only has one derivation of it. The Titans probably have other wrinkles like actually pitching it, running with it, passing it.

The bills pretend like they plain vanilla stuff because they make it so more exotic in the regular season and they don't.

Fisher and most coaches probably run these things because they want to see how another team reacts to it. See what their defense or lineup does to it so that they can execute it even better in the regular season.

It's just a pathetic state that the bills doesn't use the preseason to fine tune their game. instead they pretend like they have all these special things they have perfected in their own practices and can't wait to show us in week 1. it's just not going to happen. it hasn't happened the last 3 years, and we'd be delusional that same ole' jauron is going to actually catch everyone off guard this time around.

[thenry20]

I would be pissed off if our team ran an awesomely designed fake punt in a preseason game. That punt only helped our team by making them more aware of the crazy stuff that can happen at any given moment. It should keep them on their toes when they see anything unusual. You can bet that Bobby April will have someone assigned to break the punter's leg if we ever see a man motioning back on a punt.

Who here is complaining that the Titans ran a fake punt? That's not the issue. The problem is having your outside rushers break contain and lose all gap responsibilities. April is not the one who ****ed up there, it was Whendling. His utter stupidity on that play should cost him a roster spot. This is a fundamental mistake that should not have happened. He had no business chasing the end around when the Titans could've run a reverse to his side.

[Forward_Lateral]

It's easy to defend. If the outside gunner keeps contain, like he's supposed to, and doesn't act like a ******ed monkey, the play is stopped.

[Griff]

It was kind of silly of Fisher to run that on the first drive of the first preseason game. Shouldn't that sort of thing be saved for an important game?

[jamze132]

I still dont get why everyone is bashing the players for not stopping the play. Its the last thing you expect in a preseason game because the team that runs it has to be pretty dumb enough to run a great play in preseason
So you didn't find at odd that they had a runner in motion on a punt? You think one of the millionaires on the field would have noticed how odd that was and thought, hmm... :scratch:

It's more embarrassing than anything because it was a mental mistake, not a physical one. Physical mistakes are going to happen and I can tolerate those fairly well, but there is no excuse for a mental mistake like that from multiple players, pre-season or not.