Feagles angling for improvement after recent struggles

At age 43, Jeff Feagles is still in the NFL because of his directional punting and a precise mastery of how to angle his kicks out of bounds. But in recent weeks, those angles have betrayed the veteran punter.

Notably in the Cardinals and Chargers losses, Feagles delivered a series of short punts that gave the opponent the ball back at midfield. As the Giants try to right their season coming out of this week’s bye, after four straight losses, Feagles is personally trying to get back on track as well.

“It sickens me to come off the field and have those referees going down the sidelines 30, 35 yards,” Feagles said after practice Wednesday. “It’s very frustrating, because I know I can put it out there for 40, 45 yards.”

In the Arizona game, Feagles had four straight punts less than 35 yards, each of which placed the Cardinals between the 40-yard lines. Sunday against San Diego, he had three more short punts — between 31 and 37 yards — that positioned the Chargers between the 45-yard lines.

Feagles has spent years perfecting his directional approach, changing how he angles his body and how hard he kicks the ball based on field position. When he’s punting from Giants territory, he aims for an official standing out of bounds about 50 yards from the line of scrimmage. When he’s punting from the opponent’s territory, he aims out of bounds at the 10-yard line.

But over the past few weeks, he’s noticed that the ball is coming off his foot differently. The trajectory of his punts has always veered to the right, but his kicks have been veering more sharply to the right recently.

How does that explain the shorter punts? If he’s on the right hash mark and punting toward the right sideline, when the ball hooks right it goes out of bounds earlier than it would with a straighter trajectory — meaning a shorter punt and better field position for the opponent.

“The ball is moving more to the right than it ever has,” Feagles said. “I’ve got to start tightening up my angles, so I compensate a little more, get a little more distance rather than getting it out of bounds.”

Punting out of bounds and keeping the ball out of the returner’s hands is great — but not when it greatly sacrifices field position. Feagles’ focus is to punt deeper and, if the ball lands in the field of play, rely on the rest of the punt team to cover. Middle ground — which still reaps the benefits of the directional approach — is punts landing deeper in enemy territory but in the 12-yard alley outside the numbers, so the returner is still corralled.

Feagles will work on both adjusting his angles and hitting the ball better off his foot and hopes to be back to his old self when the Giants come out of the bye. He also is hoping the time off — which he’ll spend in Chapel Hill watching UNC, where oldest son C.J. is a freshman punter, coincidentally play against Feagles’ alma mater Miami — will help him naturally reset his technique.

“A lot of times by getting away, it helps me a lot, because I’m a real big muscle-memory type of guy,” Feagles said. “If I get away and come back, a lot of things will come back to me, and I won’t have to think about them. Sometimes, a lot of players and athletes overthink things, and I don’t want to get caught up into that.

“It’s like golf,” he continued. “Guys get away from golf for a couple of weeks, come back, and next thing you know they’re hitting the ball beautifully. I’m hoping that’s what’s going to happen.”

(Why do conversations with kickers always turn to golf?)
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I know this may be a punting overload for the afternoon. One more note from Feagles, though. We spoke to Lawrence Tynes after Sunday’s loss to explain the botched field-goal attempt in the first quarter. Wednesday was the first chance we got to talk to Feagles. He confirmed that he botched the hold, as Tynes had said.

“I caught it, and when I went to put it down, it slipped out of my hands,” Feagles said. “And by the time I got it down on the ground, Lawrence saw the angle of the ball … It’s such a split second. You figure a kick gets off in 1.3 seconds, he saw the ball at an angle and didn’t think I was going to get it back up. By the time I got it back up, could he have kicked it? Maybe. But at that instance, it’s … And then, being 4th and 1, it was the situation, I’ve got to run, and Mr. Merriman introduced himself to me.”

Imagine that’s not an on-field introduction any punter enjoys. Feagles said the last time the ball slipped out of his hands on a hold was on an extra point in the season opener against Dallas in 2007. Since Sunday’s game was lost by just one point, this instance was hard to get out of his head.

“Those kind of plays always come back to haunt you in a close game, they really do,” Feagles said. “As long as I’ve been around, they do. And again, you just feel sick about it because you’re sitting there the whole game, ‘Is this going to come back and haunt you?’ And it did at the end of the game.”
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One more final note, because it’s the blog, and there’s space. Feagles mentioned something interesting head coach Tom Coughlin said in the Giants’ team meeting Wednesday morning.

Coughlin is known for giving his players interesting statistics or relevant scenarios to motivate them. Wednesday, Feagles said the coach emphasized teams who have bounced back from losses, using the squads in last year’s AFC and NFC Championship games as examples.

“It was really a good slide,” Feagles said, “showing guys can come back.”

Feagles didn’t get into the specifics of what Coughlin said about each team, but it’s interesting to see where those teams were around this time last year.

After a loss, a tie and a loss in Weeks 10, 11 and 12, the Eagles were 5-5-1. They won four of their last 5 in the regular season. Pittsburgh lost in Week 10 and won six of its last seven regular-season games, and Baltimore lost in Week 11 (to the Giants) and won five of its last six.

Not sure how the Cardinals fit in, because they lost four of their last six games in the regular season — but starting in Week 17, did win four straight to reach the Super Bowl.



(nj.com)