Brian Mitchell on the importance of Commanders special teams

Brian Mitchell emphasizes the importance for the Washington Commanders to have a top special teams this season as they try to return to form in 2024.

Transcript

00:00Know there are a lot of people out there who like to downplay and poo-poo and shoo-shoo

00:04When it comes down to special season if it's not important

00:07Tell this body more important than some of this stuff on offense and defense because if I muffle ball when you put it at 65

00:1470 yards all of a sudden my defense is no longer on the field

00:19Okay, because also they stop the people and then I'm off it their offense is now

00:25Getting the ball in my in the scoring position and my defense is back on the field when they didn't really relatively get some

00:32Awesome rest. So when I sit there and I look at the punts, I know a lot of people just look at people catching it

00:38And things of that nature. I'm looking at where you lined up

00:42Okay, I've got to see a guy lining up at 50 yards

00:45And I don't think there's a putter ever in history of football that average 50 yards

00:50he might hit 150 every once in a while, but if his average is 42 his average is 44 you line up at that point and

00:57Then you should be able to move up or back from that position to try and catch the ball

01:01I watch how people track football when I'm watching guys flat-footed. It does absolutely nothing but piss me off

01:09because if you're flat-footed that ball is not gonna stop moving especially when there's a little windy like this today and

01:15Especially if you get a guy like Tres way who's a left-footed partner because left-footed partners put a different spin

01:20then the right foot upon it and what that ball normally does it normally tails away from you and

01:26If you flat foot it I watch a couple of today and I don't put people's name like that

01:30But the certain returner was flat-footed and the ball just fell away from him and it hit right in front of him

01:37the next time he caught one from a jugs machine and it damned in his helmet off because he wasn't he wasn't tracking the ball

01:43right, and that type of thing to me is vitally important, so

01:48When we talk about just put this guy back there to return

01:51But just cuz somebody's fast just so they could catch a ball means absolutely nothing

01:55You need to be able to catch it track it be fast and have an understanding of when you should and shouldn't do certain things

02:03You know, I had never returned plus in my life

02:06Until I got to the NFL. I never did it in no league

02:10In high school nothing because I was like they are out there damn mind

02:13I'm not looking up in the sky when somebody come down to it

02:16But when they started paying me to do something and it was the way I had a ticket to make it to the NFL

02:21Which was my dream. I began to study it. So I studied Mike Nelms. He didn't fair catch

02:27That's why I didn't fair catch early on. I began to watch Joe Howard Johnson and Walter Stanley on this team

02:32I watched Mel Gray who was in Detroit and I began to pick up different things

02:36But then I realized that all of those guys were

02:40smaller and shifty

02:42My game was power and speed

02:45So once I caught the ball

02:46I wanted to make sure all of those things right because once the ball was in my hand I understood