An interesting nugget at the end of Ron Rivera’s presser Monday that the team is going to ‘gather information’ about long snappers this week, after Camaron Cheeseman had another bad snap that led to a missed field goal on Sunday.
Reports came out Tuesday that among the long snappers being brought in for a look this week are Jake McQuaide and Tucker Addington, as Rivera had said Monday that Cheeseman’s issues “can’t happen every week because it could cost you a game, and you don't want it to affect anyone else,” and “we need to have an insurance policy, because if we need to do something that’s best for this football team, we’ll do it.”
Is it true that the 53rd man on the roster maybe the most important?
“Cheeseman is a nice kid, and they traded up to get him – which, you can question that move when you had Nick Sundberg, a veteran who was really well liked among his teammates and fans,” JP Finlay said Tuesday. “He was dealing with injuries late in his career, but he was still delivering, but they released him and traded up to get Cheeseman, and I don’t think we’ve had these conversations very often, but he’s struggling.”
The reason, as JP explained, may be that he decided to change his technique in the offseason, and “as a beat reporter, you pay attention to every little minute thing, because you see everything all the time.”
“Something like the kicking game, they call it the operation – it’s the snap to the hold to the kick, and they're all vital to getting the points,” JP said. “Making the actual kick is the actual hardest, but he ain’t making the kick if the hold ain’t right, and it’s hard to get the hold right if the snap ain’t good.”
Counting the preseason, we’re five games into Cheeseman’s season, and so far, the weak link in the special teams chain has been the first one…and it is an issue.
“I’m a ‘why?’ guy; I need to know why something is happening, not just that it is happening, and I can't get my why on Cheese – like, what the hell is happening? What has changed?” JP asked.
“He was so good at it, why did he change up his operation?” BMitch said. “The long snapper gets more work than anyone else on the field at what they do other than the quarterback and the center. When practice is happening for anyone, they’re snapping. They’re always doing it, so they should be the most advanced people on the field.”
Those watching on TV didn’t get to see the bad snap on a Joey Slye field goal attempt because the coverage missed it, but even the casual fans are noticing.
“It’s galling when you traded up to get a long snapper, and the guy can’t get the job done,” producer Landphill chimed in.
“But in two years, we never ever discussed Cheeseman, and we were talking about how good those three guys were together,” BMitch replied. “Now this year he changes something and we're back to this, my question: you can't go back to what you were doing before?”
Rivera has now said it’s an issue two weeks in a row, and as JP said, “a team with limited offense can’t have a hole in their kicking game,” and BMitch is right there.
“The snapper is as important as anybody on that field because when he snaps, it's normally points, and when he’s snapping a punt, you don’t want a bad snap where he sails one the punter can’t get to – that’s chunk yardage, and that’s a problem,” Brian said.
Take a listen to the entire conversation above, as well as a segment with former NFL long snapper Ryan Kuehl about Cheeseman's struggles!