On Wednesday I flew to Minnesota. For the next week I will be in Minnesota and Wisconsin working the River Falls Kicking Camp plus, doing several One on One Lessons with High School, College and NFL Kicking Specialists.
Today, I was doing a One on One Punting Lesson with Derrick Frost, who is the punter for the Washington Redskins. We did our One on One workout at Edina High School which has a gorgeous field turf stadium.
When I was the Special Teams Coordinator for the Baltimore Ravens I was the only NFL Coach to give Derrick a workout. Derrick graduated about 6 years ago from the University of Northern Iowa. We picked up Derrick off waivers since one of the NFL teams had cut him after the May mini camp and brought him to the Baltimore Ravens training camp. He performed very well and was eventually picked up by the Cleveland Browns a year later.
Derrick has punted for the Cleveland Browns and Washington Redskins during his 5 year veteran NFL punting career.
Derrick has just finished his OTA's with the Redskins and was quite happy with his performance in camp. He feels like he is much further ahead at this present time than in previous years.
Derrick received a wake up call from the Redskins when they drafted Georgia Techs, Durant Brooks, who was the Ray Guy Award Winner in the 6th Round.
Derrick and I have talked on the phone for about six weeks and I know he is very focused on his mission to be the punter with the Redskins this year. We have talked about a punting program that will help him be the best he can be. Today when he punted, it looked like the plan and his hard work has paid dividends.
Derrick is working several drills to emphasize specific fundamentals that he needs to get more consistent. I watched and videotaped Derrick working his drills and made comments on how I thought he could improve them.
After Derrick finished his drills he punted about 30 balls. He started with some pooch punts then progressed to open field directional punts going right and left. He finished his workout with punts coming out of the end zone.
Derrick had a good workout today but, what I really liked about his workout was the fact that he had a purpose for every punt he did during his workout. I believe Derrick is maturing. Check out this 45 yard pooch punt that had a hang time of 5.37 seconds. Derrick hit (SNO) spiral nose over punt that hit on the five yard line. It was a heck of a punt even though it was in pooch punt territory.
My coaching point to Derrick was, he needs to have consistent mechanics which will give him improved hang times on his open field punts like he is performing in long pooch punt territory.
Stay tuned for more of Coach Zauner's Blog from Minnesota and Wisconsin!
