Shane Lechler has some serious ground to make up if he wants to break Sammy Baugh’s single-season record for punt average.
After averaging only 44.2 yards per kick last week in Cleveland, Lechler slipped behind Baugh’s mark of 51.4 set in 1940. Lechler’s second punt of the day went for only 42 yards and he started pressing after that. He average dropped from 51.5 to 51.1 in that game.
“I kind of started thinking too much and started saying, ‘I need to make up some ground here’ and started swinging harder and harder and harder, and you know how that goes: worse, worse, worse, worse,” he said.
Lechler said he knows where he stands compared to Baugh each week and that players who say they don’t know how close they are to records are lying.
Lechler heads into the season finale against Baltimore needing a big game. If he gets his average six punts a game, Lechler would need 56.5 yards a kick to pass Baugh, a mark he has reached only once in his career in a game with that many punts. With fewer kicks, he’d need to average even more yards.
aid. “That’s all I’m going to do. I’m going to go out there and cut it loose. I’m not going to hold anything back.”
Lechler is in good position to break his personal net punting average of 41.2 set last season. He is averaging 44.0 yards this year.
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BACK IN PRIME TIME: The AFC North champion Bengals finally made it to prime time in the final week of the regular season. They know what they’ve accomplished had very little to do with it.
Their game against the New York Jets was flexed to Sunday night, the first time in more than two years Cincinnati has played a Sunday night or Monday night game. It’s a sore subject in the locker room.
“As a football player, you always want to play on Monday night football and Sunday night football and Thursday night football,” quarterback Carson Palmer said. “I don’t think there’s a guy in our locker room that doesn’t want to do that. It’s just one of the negatives of playing here.
“It’s a small market, there’s a negative outlook on us, and you just don’t get those nationally televised games year in and year out like some of the bigger market teams. But that’s just how it is. It’s not going to change.”
they were on HBO’s “Hard Knocks” series in training camp.
When a reporter asked Palmer whether he sees it as a reward for Cincinnati to play a night game, he smiled and said, “This game’s on national TV because it’s the Jets, not because it’s the Bengals.”
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COPPERTONE JONES: Thomas Jones always smells as if he’s hitting the beach before he steps on the football field.
The New York Jets running back has several pregame rituals, but he says the weirdest is spraying himself with sun block. No matter the weather, he’s got some Coppertone SPF 70 on.
“Even if we’re playing in minus-10 degrees in Chicago, I’ll still put sun block on,” Jones said, with two bottles of the lotion visible in his locker. “Maybe it’s the smell of it, but I’ve been putting sun block on since I got to Arizona. It was so hot every day that we had to put it on before we went to practice. I think the smell of it makes me, I don’t know. It’s hard to explain.”
It also doesn’t matter if the Jets are playing indoors, like last week at Indianapolis’ Lucas Oil Stadium.
“Guys are like, ‘Why are you putting sun block on? It’s 20 degrees,’ or ‘We’re playing inside and there’s no sun,’ but it’s just something I do,” Jones said. “I have the trainers make sure they pack my bag with sun block.”
1,324 yards – just 12 from surpassing his career high set in 2005 with Chicago. Jones is also just 11 carries away from topping his high of 314, also in 2005.
“I just have a routine,” he said. “I’m one of these kind of superstitious people. I just do the same thing over and over again. I put my pads on the same way, get my ankles taped the same way. Every game, I just do the same thing.”
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TOP TACKLING MAN: Patrick Willis might get down on one knee and pump his buff biceps muscle when he makes a big play. Still, San Francisco’s Pro Bowl linebacker isn’t too concerned about whether he leads the NFL in tackles for the second time in three seasons.
Willis realizes more chances come when you’re on the field a lot, which has been the case for the 49ers’ defense much of this season.
“I don’t think leading the league in tackles says a whole lot,” Willis said. “There were times this year when we were out there (on defense) more than usual. I don’t think you win any awards for having the most tackles. On top of that, we’re not going to the postseason, so it really doesn’t matter.”
Willis headed into Sunday’s season finale at St. Louis with an NFL-best 147 tackles, 13 higher heading into Week 17 than linebackers Jon Beason of Carolina and Washington’s London Fletcher. Willis, who turns 25 on Jan. 25, also has four sacks, three forced fumbles and three interceptions.
es in his rookie season of 2007.
Coach Mike Singletary, a Hall of Fame linebacker himself, insists he hasn’t seen another player with Willis’ range.
“No, I can say that plain and simple,” Singletary said. “But I am still saying this: Pat has a ways to go before he gets all of it. This guy, I don’t know how good he can be. But I know he’s not there yet. He knows it as well. There is so much more that he can do better, and I don’t say that being negative toward him. I say that in God’s gift to him, in terms of what he has gifted him with, is tremendous.
“It is amazing to me that a guy could have that much ability as a linebacker. I am really excited about some of the things and some of the goals he has this offseason of trying to take that next step. I am excited to see where it goes, but he is exceptional.”
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NOT PLAYING TO WIN THE GAME: A day after the NFL announced its Pro Bowl selections, many players preparing for the playoffs expressed their desire not to play in this year’s game, which falls one week before the Super Bowl.
But in Indianapolis, the question of not playing took on new meaning given this week’s events.
The Colts have been criticized nationally and by fans locally for pulling their starters in the third quarter of Sunday’s loss to the Jets, throwing away a chance at a perfect season to rest players for what they hope will be a Super Bowl run.
s weekend at Buffalo, coach Jim Caldwell was asked Wednesday about the oddity of not wanting to play the game.
“Which game? The Pro Bowl,” he said drawing laughter. “Obviously, that’s because of where it falls and it’s certainly in our line of thinking.”
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AP Football Writer Barry Wilner and Sports Writers Janie McCauley in San Francisco, Josh Dubow in Oakland, Michael Marot in Indianapolis, Dennis Waszak Jr., in New York, and Joe Kay in Cincinnati contributed to this story.
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