What's so special about long snapping?

[HDC]

The long-snapper has to practice every day with the punter and the kicker while the starting offense and defense are practicing simultaneously. So, a starting OL or DL would have a hard time doing it. Coaches often ask backup OLs or DLs to learn how. Those that learn stay in the league a long time.

 

[Crown Royal]

The Long Snapper is one of the top 3-4 players you have on ST. ST is fully 1/3 of your team. Yes - it IS that important. I wasn't happy with the cutting of Robinson when it happened, and I hate it now.

 

[THUMPER]

A question for you ex-football pros. What is so danged hard about long snapping that we need to takeup a roster spot just for the position?

It can't be an injury concern for your center as you almost never hear of longsnappers getting hurt on punts, fgs or PAs.

Is it that da#$ difficult to hurl a spiral behind you a few yards and basically let the DL force you into the turf that a starting or backup O lineman couldn't do it?

Freeing up a roster spot is huge in today's game. It can mean another skill position, another lineman, a place for a good ST player, etc...

Am I missing something completely obvious here?

I did it when I was playing semi-pro ball and it is EXTREMELY difficult to be consistent with it. I was also the starting Center and MLB.

You are basically throwing a blind pass between your legs to a specific height and distance with usually two guys standing over you to shove you on your behind as soon as you move the ball.

The ball has to travel 5 yards or 15 feet and be between 2 and 3 feet off the ground and within 6 inches side to side of center. Oh and it also has to have some velocity on it and no arc.

Set that up sometime and see how many times you can hit a box and you will see just how difficult is it to be consistent at it.

Guys like Dale Hellstrae and Jeff Robinson made careers out of perfecting this one skill but they also had to be able to block and cover on punts. Helly was usually in the top-3 in STs tackles when he played for us so he was more than just an excellent deep snapper, he was a very good athlete as well and could sub in at Center or OG when needed. Robinson was also a pretty decent TE who caught a few TD passes for us.

I can tell you that it is nowhere near as easy as it looks.

Maybe I should try out for the job... Of course it's been over 25 years since I played semi-pro ball but what the heck.

 

[Hostile]

Dale Hellestrae was on Letterman one time doing a demonstration. He might be the best ever.

Dave had a car drive by the depth of a Punter behind Hellestrae and he put the snaps right through the open car window.

He also supposedly could get 35 to 40 mph on the ball. That's upside down looking between his legs, on the money and then standing up to block.

It isn't easy at all.

 

[THUMPER]

Dale Hellestrae was on Letterman one time doing a demonstration. He might be the best ever.

Dave had a car drive by the depth of a Punter behind Hellestrae and he put the snaps right through the open car window.

He also supposedly could get 35 to 40 mph on the ball. That's upside down looking between his legs, on the money and then standing up to block.

It isn't easy at all.

Hellestrae was by far the best I've ever seen. I once did a calculation on how accurate he was based on the number of punts, FGs, & XPs we had when he was here (regular season and playoffs) and it was a phenominal number, something like two bad snaps in 2500+ attempts (don't quote me on that though, I have to go back and look it up).

Compared to any other player at any position ever he was the most accurate player of all time by an enormous margin. If I recall correctly, we never had a punt, FG, or XP blocked in the regular season when he was the deep-snapper.

I know they would never have a place in the HoF for a deep-snapper and certainly not for one who was a Cowboy but if they did he would be the guy. He was far and away the best ever, 2nd place is miles behind.

 

[big dog cowboy]

Hellestrae =