Rams receiver Tavon Austin always a threat to strike when returning punts

For Tavon Austin, the beloved Mountaineer wide receiver could be seeing the time for a big season with the St. Louis Rams this season.

Third-year wide receiver/return man Tavon Austin won NFC special teams player of the week for his 75-yard punt return for a touchdown late in the third quarter.

The Redskins will once again be up against a lethal punt returner, this time in Tavon Austin.

It doesn’t get any easier against the Rams and Austin, as the Redskins know first-hand. Tavon returned a punt for a 75 yard touchdown Sunday, and it was a beauty. He also had a punt return for a touchdown in that very same game. From watching the game against Seattle, the Rams ran one play when Austin and Benny Cunningham were in the backfield and they ran Austin on a wheel route to open up a screen play for Benny. “It’s hard , but we just have to hold our guys accountable and make sure we challenge them”. “It’s not like after you play the Dolphins, you can take a sigh of relief and say, ‘Thank goodness they’re out of here, ‘” Gruden said. “Sometimes we blast a punt down there and we get a 50-yard net, and then sometimes you blast a punt down, they block it correctly, you got an incredibly athlete like [Jarvis] Landry back there and he can make everybody miss and take it to the house”. Aaron Donald won Defensive Rookie of the Year honors last season, so now he will set his sights on the real prize: Defensive Player of the Year.

Of course though, where Austin is most effective is in special teams returning punts. This is a different team than 2013, we got guys out there that are flying around.

“Certainly, technically, by rule we could have had a flag down”, Blandino said. “He’s fast, he’s quick, he’s explosive, [we’ve] got to try and contain him”.

“He’s one of the best, if not the best [punt returner] in the league right now, and so it’s going to be a fun match on Sunday”, Way said.

Redskins head coach Jay Gruden said that it’s hard to practice punt protection during the week due to roster size, but that there are still ways to work on this aspect of the game.

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Way’s 54-yard punt lacked hang time, which didn’t help the Redskins’ cover team.

“If the ball is punted 30 yards with no hang time or 50 yards with no hang time, it doesn’t matter”, Robinson said.