Steelers believe 'play speed' is all that matters in rookie punt returner Ayers
May 12, 2016
By Ray Fittipaldo / Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
Steelers special-teams coach Danny Smith is a throwback to another NFL era. When he communicates he prefers — no, demands — a personal connection, a point that is driven home by the fact that he doesn’t use email.
When it comes to scouting, Smith is old-school as well. The meat market that is the NFL scouting combine, where players run through drills in nothing more than spandex, is an exercise Smith would rather do without.
The way Smith sees it, a football player ought to be judged by his on-field performance, and he explained his methodology late last month when discussing the decision to draft University of Houston punt-returner Demarcus Ayers in the seventh round. Ayers isn’t fast, as evidenced by the 4.72 40-yard dash time he ran at the combine, but Smith wasn’t scared off by his timed speed.
“Forty times matter, but maybe they matter too much,” Smith said. “There’s a play speed in this league. This kid plays fast. If I showed you the tape I put together on this kid, you wouldn’t think that that’s a matchup of the time he [runs]. To be honest with you, and I’m a little bit old-fashioned in a lot of ways. I don’t know where/when we started in one of the craziest things in all of football, whether it’s in high school or college or professional football. … We wear about 15 pounds of pads with helmets, shoulder pads and pads and girdles and thighs and knee [pads] and then we time these guys in track shoes and their underwear. I don’t know where we went wrong with that.
“If I had to do it, I’d time them in full pads. I’m just trying to translate. That’s what I mean by play speed. This kid plays faster than his 40 time. Maybe that’s his vision. Maybe that’s quicker decisions. I think if we took a lot of guys at 7/11, they would run fast, but, if the cop is chasing them, they would be a little faster. I think some of our players are like that.”
Publicly, the Steelers are saying they’re not looking to relieve All-Pro receiver Antonio Brown of his punt-return duties. Their actions say something else.
The decision to draft Ayers wasn’t the first time the Steelers moved to replace Brown as punt-returner. When the Steelers signed Jacoby Jones in the middle of last season to replace Dri Archer as kick-returner they also inserted him as the punt-returner.
That was a short-lived experiment after Jones fumbled on kick and punt returns in a game against Indianapolis late in the season. The Steelers went back to Brown, and that worked out fine until he was injured in the AFC wild-card game against Cincinnati. Brown missed the playoff game at Denver the next week with a concussion, and the Steelers had to use Markus Wheaton on punt returns. He muffed a punt and nearly gave the Broncos the ball at the goal line.
Enter Ayers, an accomplished college returner who might be able to land a roster spot in wake of Martavis Bryant’s year-long drug suspension.
“You can never have enough punt-returners,” Smith said. “We are not ready to give this kid the position by no means. He is a seventh-round draft choice, but I think he has an excellent skill level. He will be competitive at the position.”
Ayers, who left Houston with one year of college eligibility remaining, wasn’t drafted until the seventh round because of his size (5-9, 182) and his unspectacular combine numbers. Ayers said he is faster than his posted 4.72 and blamed his poor time on a fractured bone in his hand that limited the amount of training he could do before the combine.
The Steelers have kept one-dimensional return specialists on their roster in recent years, most notably Archer and Jones, neither of whom contributed to the offense. Then again, perhaps that’s the reason they were jettisoned so quickly when their returns didn’t produce the results the Steelers expected.
Ayers would have a better chance to make the roster if he could contribute to the offense. That wasn’t a problem at Houston, where he caught 97 passes for 1,221 yards and six touchdowns last season. He also had 26 rushes for 148 yards and was 2 for 3 with two touchdown passes on gadget plays.
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