Dave Toub expects Chiefs’ Mecole Hardman to ‘bounce back in a big way’ in Super Bowl
Mecole Hardman’s muffed punt in the AFC Championship Game didn’t prove disastrous as the Chiefs beat the Bills by a comfortable margin.
But it did lead to some nervous moments for fans and an NFL Films video of Chiefs players showing their support for Hardman went viral days later.
On Tuesday, special-teams coordinator Dave Toub said the Chiefs have no plans to make a change for Super Bowl LV.
“Mecole is our guy,” Toub said in a Super Bowl news conference. “He made a mistake last week and it happens. Guys drop passes. I mean you can’t just take all the work that he’s done in the past and throw it away because he made one mistake, despite it was a big game.
“But he’s gonna come back and he’s gonna bounce back in a big way. He’s gonna make some big plays for us. And he did in that game, he just didn’t have an opportunity as a punt returner to make another big play. But he bounced back and made two huge plays on offense. That just showed you that he did forget about it. And he was able to bounce back. That’s a credit to him.”
Those two plays were a 50-yard run and a touchdown reception, and both were key to the Chiefs’ win.
Toub acknowledged that Hardman and Tyreek Hill are the Chiefs’ top two options at punt returner. But he said punt returning would be adding to much to Hill’s already heavy workload.
There are special qualities that Toub looks for in this particular job.
“There’s a lot that goes to being a good punt returner,” Toub said. “You have to have a lot of courage. There is one thing about catching punts off a JUGS (machine) in practice when there’s nobody coming down on the field, running down there to take your head off. There’s a big difference. You have to have a player that’s game-tested, that’s done it, game in and game out, got the tough catch and got hit, was able to bounce back and catch the next punt with just the same amount of confidence.
“That’s what you’re looking for. And Mecole has proven that. He had tough catches in the Super Bowl last year, the biggest game of all, that he made. I went back and looked at those just this morning. So you have to have somebody that’s battle tested. That’s the number one thing, can they be a good catcher.
“And then it comes down to athletic ability after that, can you make a guy miss? How’s your vision after you start running? Can you see the coverage coming down? Do you read your blocks well? And the speed, that’s the capper. That’s the icing on the cake. When you have a guy that does hit the open field and then can break in and be a game breaker because he changes angles. And we have two guys, obviously, that can do that.”
This story was originally published February 2, 2021 at 11:47 AM.
