How Detroit Lions special teams coordinator Dave Fipp became The Prince of Fake Punts

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https://sports.yahoo.com/detroit-lions-special-teams-coordinator-100709469.html

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That’s a really good article, and confirms a few points I’ve always thought about. Special Teams should be another way to attack a team, and not just throwing your worst players out there for scrub time. Dave Toub in KC is also a special teams guru, and was the coach at Chicago while Devin Hester was there. He also plays starters or second string guys on special teams for this reason.

The other point it makes that I love, is that because teams have to focus so hard on our special teams, it takes away time to focus on other things. We force teams to defend every inch of the field, even if we have the ball on their side of it. KC and Andy Reid payed us great respect when they asked about the Lions running the fake punt, and Andy said they knew we were going to do it at some point and still couldn’t stop it. Watching Toub get beated by Fipp on the fake punt game 1 was awesome!

This was a subtle thing but still got a laugh from the KC game. In our section, when it was 4th down my brother in law (Chiefs fan) said “yeah we forced a punt”. I jokingly said, “do we run a fake here?” (thinking there was no way). My brother in law said “You can’t fake it here!” and I said “Exactly!” Low and behold they faked it. We went nuts and I yelled out “that’s what we do here!” All of the Chiefs fans were stunned and started asking how did I know? It’s a Detroit thing. :smiley:

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Great story. Thanks for sharing.

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Great article. Thanks. And for those who have just skipped on Fipps, pressers, I suggest you do yourself the favor. He is a great guy to listen to. Incredibly comfortable with the media and a pretty funny guy.

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Fipp knows his analytics on special teams really well… he’s an impressive guy to listen to at any presser he has! In years past, I’d just skip over ‘special teams’ pressers and such to ‘get to the real stuff’. In Detroit, Fipp is just as much… the real stuff!

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Yes, very smart guy. I’ll be the first to admit I’ve never been the guy to sit down and talk schematics and strategy on special teams; but listening to Kipp over the last three years I have really learned a lot. And he makes it easy because frankly he puts it simply and it makes sense.

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Fox

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