GREEN BAY, Wis. -- Ron Zook was the only coordinator left standing after Mike McCarthy restructured his coaching staff following the Green Bay Packers’ 7-9 season.
It’s no coincidence that the Packers’ special teams reached their highest ranking in Zook’s three years as coordinator.
Although there’s still a long way to go before that unit could be considered a strength of the team, the Packers at least climbed to the middle of the league. They finished 16th in long-time Dallas-based NFL reporter Rick Gosselin’s annual special teams rankings.
“I thought Ron did an excellent job this year,” McCarthy said shortly after the season, around when he fired defensive coordinator Dom Capers and offensive coordinator Edgar Bennett.
“Frankly of the coordinator positions, Ron has the hardest job. He’s not only young, but in some sense you’re starting over again because of the youth of our team, and how we try to treat starters and just be smart with the play time and some of the reactions that we’ve had to this injury pattern that’s been upon our team the last two years. So I thought Ron Zook did a hell of a job this year.”
It was the highest ranking for the Packers' special teams since they were 12th in 2012.
The Rams, Chiefs and Patriots -- three playoff teams -- finished first, second and third, respectively, in the rankings. The Giants were last.
Zook’s unit ranked 29th for the 2016 season and 17th in 2015. The Packers were dead last at No. 32 in 2014, which was Shawn Slocum’s last year as special teams coordinator (Zook was Slocum’s assistant that season).
The former head coach at Illinois and Florida will return to run the special teams next season but will have a new assistant, Maurice Drayton, who spent the past two seasons as the Colts' assistant special teams coach. He replaces Jason Simmons, who will move to a defensive coaching position.
In Gosselin’s rankings, the Packers finished in the top 5 in four categories: punt return (second overall), lowest opponent punting average (second), lowest opponent net punting (fifth) and points allowed on special teams (tied for first with zero). They finished last in two categories: punts inside the 20 and field goals made.
The Packers’ biggest problem on special teams this past season was penalties. They finished with 22 accepted special teams infractions -- twice what the NFL-leading Vikings had in that category. The Jaguars had the most special teams penalties with 26.