KR obviously matters. To say otherwise is absurd. MANY teams have Ks who don't have "enough leg", even from the 35. Hell, MIAMI's one of them: didn't you guys watch CARPENTER's KOs this preseason??? Not every team has a S JANIKOWSKY (sp?).
And, of course, the new kickoff rule has NO EFFECT whatsoever on PUNTS. It was a PUNT that LIVAS took "to the house", not a kickoff. LIVAS made great returns even when he gained little to nothing. Do any of you remember the DALLAS game at all? TWICE, there were short punts, low line drives. One was 36 and one was 31 Yards. LIVAS ran up at full speed and fielded BOTH. On the 31 yard Punt, he only picked up 6 or so Yards. BUT!!!!! What would've happened if he let that short, low, line drive Punt hit the ground???? Here's a hint: bye-bye field position. Here's another hint: a while back, GATES let a punt bounce in front of him, at about the MIAMI 20. It went right thru his legs, and (luckily) didn't touch him. But it rolled down to about the 8 Yard line. I hope that GATES at least learned something from that episode. LIVAS didn't have to...he instinctively already KNEW.
Now, think risk. It seems foolish to risk our 2 "big play" burners, C GATES and R BUSH, returning Punts and Kickoffs when we have someone who specialized at it in College, and who does the little things like fielding low/short punts instinctively, and who also is a burner (or very colose to it). Sometimes I just feel that MIAMI's F-O is plain old STOOOOPID from top to bottom.
