THE SPECIAL TEAMS DECEPTION THAT THE PATRIOTS BETTER BE READY FOR

Last week the New England Patriots were the Masters of Deception as they busted out some trick plays to overcome a 14 point deficit to the Baltimore Ravens.  This week they will need to be ready for some trickery coming from the Colts' special teams unit.

When most people look at the matchup between the Patriots and Colts and think about special teams, they automatically think about the two kickers: Adam Vinatieri and Stephen Gostkowski.  Why wouldn't they think about the field goal kickers with the obvious storylines:

• Vinatieri was the kicker for the Patriots during their 3 Super Bowl Championships. 
• "Automatic Adam" was the Patriots all-time leading scorer until Gostkowski overcame him this December. 

While many Patriots fans still think letting Vinatieri go was all about money, Belichick did have another reason.  Although field goals and extra points are how kickers get their chance in the NFL, most of them are usually responsible for kickoff duties.  This is where Vinatieri struggled and Belichick took notice.  In his final season for the Patriots, Vinatieri managed only 10 touchbacks in 80 kickoffs.  The season prior he kicked off 94 times and only managed to have 6 stay in the endzone.  That season the Patriots special teams unit also gave up a touchdown.  While it is important to note that these statistics come from a time when kickoffs were still commenced at the 30 yard line, Belichick once again saw something before the rest of us.  After becoming a Colt, Vinatieri was relieved of his kickoff duties in the 2009 season.        

In 2009 the Colts got themselves a new punter who is also responsible for kickoffs, I guess you could say Pat McAfee is a field position specialist.  As a punter he was very impressive in the regular season with 30 of his 69 punts leaving the opponent inside the 20 yard line and having only 3 punts result in touchbacks.  In his two playoff games he hasn't been as sharp as 4 of 8 punts have been touchbacks and only 1 was left inside the 20.

When it come to kickoffs, touchbacks are a good thing and McAfee had 70 of them this season alone.  Yes, 70 of the 99 kickoffs McAfee kicked in the regular season were touchbacks.  To put this in perspective, Gostkowski also had 99 kickoffs in the regular season and only 53 of them were touchbacks.  
 
KICKOFF TRICKERY
If you add up the 70 touchbacks and 26 returns on McAfee's regular season kickoffs you get 96 which appears to be 3 kickoffs short.  Well, those three kickoffs that appear to be missing were all onside kicks.  More accurately, they were all successful onside kicks.  While one of the kicks wasn't super tricky as is occurred late in the game with the Colts trailing, the other two came early on with the Colts in the lead.  Here is a quick recap of each onside kick:

• 9/07- Down 17-31 at Denver with 9:54 left in the game.  Resulting possession ended in an Andrew Luck interception.  The Colts lost 31-24.
• 9/28- Up 7-0 at home against the Tennessee Titans with 7:06 left in the first quarter.  Resulted in a touchdown and final score victory of 41-17. 
• 10/0- Up 3-0 in Houston with 11:13 left in the first quarter.  Two plays later the Colts scored a touchdown and went up 10-0.  Eventually won the game 33-28.

While the Titans and Texans were undoubtedly surprised by these onsides kicks, don't expect Belichick and the Patriots to be unprepared.  

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