ALAMEDA, Calif. (AP) -Johnnie Lee Higgins’ early-season struggles as a returner reached a peak last month when he fielded a kickoff and ran straight out of bounds at his own 2-yard line.
The past two weeks have shown Higgins at his best. He has returned punts 93 and 89 yards for touchdowns – the two longest punt returns in the NFL this season – giving a big boost to an Oakland Raiders offense that has struggled to score points.
“I always look at myself as a playmaker,” he said Monday. “That’s the thing my coaches always tell me, don’t go out there and find the play, let the game come to you.”
Higgins has done that on his long returns against Miami and Denver. His 93-yard return against the Dolphins ended a three-game touchdown drought for Oakland, and his 89-yarder in Denver on Sunday gave the Raiders (3-8) their first touchdown in a 31-10 victory.
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“On the punt return the other 10 guys are doing an excellent job,” Higgins said. “I just catch the ball and they just give me a hole to run. It’s really not hard to read. You catch the ball, you got everybody blocking, doing what they’re supposed to do, moving people out of the way for you, it’s like your own personal escort service.”
A third-round pick out of UTEP in 2007, Higgins was expected to transform Oakland’s return game. Instead, he ended up losing his job midway through his rookie season because he couldn’t hold onto the ball or break off long returns.
He averaged just 5.2 yards on 20 returns with four fumbles. He wasn’t doing much better this season before the long return against Miami.
“It was a confidence builder,” he said. “I look at it in the beginning of the season, no matter what you do you have to have a swagger, you have to have confidence within yourself. If you don’t have confidence within yourself great things are not going to come.”
That confidence took a severe hit when Higgins was ridiculed for the blunder in Baltimore. He caught a kickoff running toward the sideline and kept going, stepping out of bounds at the 2. That led to a safety for the Ravens and ultimately cost Higgins his job returning kicks.
“The little mishap on that kickoff return set me back a little bit, but I bounced back,” he said.
Interim coach Tom Cable said he believed the return against Miami brought that confidence back.
Cable also thinks that Higgins has been helped by the addition of kickoff returner Justin Miller, allowing him to concentrate more on his role in the punt game.
“A kickoff returner is like saying, ‘You’re going to get in a head-on collision, and you’re a Volkswagen and here comes a Mack truck,”’ Cable said. “And so, that kind of may distract you a little bit, you’ve go to be wired a little different for that one. So I think really it’s just kind of put his focus a little more tight.”
Higgins has been hit or miss this year on punts, tying for the league high with five punt returns of at least 20 yards. He has averaged just 2.3 yards on his other 27 returns.
Building some consistency is what the Raiders are looking for out of their returner.
“Our focus is 10 yards,” he said. “If you gain 10, hey that’s a good thing. If you get more than 10, that’s a great thing. That’s just what we’re doing.”
Now Higgins needs to work on his celebration. After the return against Denver, he attempted a flip in the end zone. But he didn’t make it all the way around, landing on his hands as if doing a push-up, drawing a penalty for unsportsmanlike conduct.
The penalty didn’t end up hurting Oakland because Sebastian Janikowski booted the kickoff from the 15 to the goal line. But Higgins is looking for a better celebration that won’t draw a penalty.
“I just need to get my acrobatic skills up and do more than that,” he said.
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