Arizona Cardinals special teams look to come up special vs. Green Bay

TEMPE, Ariz. — They say you’re only as good as your last game, and the last game for the Arizona Cardinals special teams was not good; in fact, it was downright awful.

A unit that had performed well for much of the year saved its worst effort for last, missing kicks and failing to cover punts in the regular-season finale against Seattle.

Chandler Catanzaro was wide right on his only extra-point attempt and hit the left upright on a 51-yard field goal try just prior to the end of the first half, ending a streak of 19 consecutive makes.

And then there was Seahawks rookie Tyler Lockett, who at one point in the second quarter had more punt return yards (139) then the Cardinals had total yards (110).  Three of his four returns gained at least 30 yards, two of which set Seattle up deep in Arizona territory and led to touchdowns.

The problem was something simple.

“Tackling,” special teams coordinator Amos Jones said. “You got to tackle. If you’re going to punt the ball at a 5-0 hang time you got to be able to tackle those balls. You can’t punt every ball directionally; you can’t punt every ball out of bounds, so you got to be able to tackle.”

And that’s easily correctable, according to three-time Pro Bowl special teams ace Justin Bethel.

“It’s a couple of things here and there we just got to do (better),” he said.  “Drew (Butler) was kicking the ball great; we just got to do a little better job of covering.  We’ve been working on that and fixing what we got to fix and we’ll be ready for this game coming up.”

With no game last week, the Cardinals had extra time to make the necessary corrections heading into their Divisional Round matchup against Green Bay on Saturday at University of Phoenix Stadium.

Those days also afforded Catanzaro to review his pre-kick routine.

Head coach Bruce Arians had suggested Catanzaro was heading out on to the field too early, perhaps causing him to overthink his mechanics.

“That could’ve had something to do with it,” said Catanzaro, who made 53 of his 58 PATs. “We practiced it, though, and I’m ready to go Saturday.”

Only six kickers ended the regular season perfect on extra-point attempts (minimum of 10 attempts). There were 27 a year ago.

Pushing the try back to 33 yards certainly played a factor.

Amos brought up another component: scoring reviews.

Of Catanzaro’s five missed extra-point attempts, three came after a longer-than-normal delay because of a replay review, which upset the tempo of the process of the kick, according to Jones.

“So if you’ve got a guy standing over a spot for all day, digging a hole and he keeps looking at it, ‘heck, I’ve got to dig it 19-feet deep,’ he’s worried about 19 feet,” he said. “So you just try to build that in to something that’s going to be able to help him not have to stand out there over the job so long because of the reviews because you don’t ever know (how long the review will last).”

Catanzaro, now in his second year with the Cardinals, actually performed better kicking field goals than extra-points. He only missed three field goal attempts, with two of those coming from 50 yards or longer.

Overall, Catanzaro was 28-of-31, including a perfect 22-of-22 from inside 40 yards, and twice hit game-winners, the first two of his career.

“I’ve been there before,” he said, referring to pressure kicks against Cincinnati and Minnesota. “I’ve already been there. It’s just another kick in my eyes. I’m confident moving forward; hopefully just help my team win games, that’s all I’m here to do.”

Of course there is regular season pressure and postseason pressure.

Vikings kicker Blair Walsh provided the most recent example of that last week when he missed a 27-yard field goal with 26 seconds left, helping Seattle advance to the Divisional Round.

“That’s not something that we worry about anymore with (Catanzaro) — at least I don’t because he’s handled that,” Jones said.

“Chandler’s biggest thing is, I always think and look back, he can help himself correct, whether it’s a kick in pregame or it’s a kick during the game (that’s missed), he’s going to come back and bounce back, and those are the guys that are going to make it in this league is the guys that — almost like a quarterback throwing an interception –can he move on past that. ‘I’m not going to miss two kicks in a row.’ So those are the things that you want to make sure you’re helping him at as a coach.”

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