Arizona Cardinals rookie Max Melton has become a dual threat with his progress at cornerback and also on special teams as one of the gunners on punt coverage.
His defensive snaps have increased throughout the season, although there were fewer in Sunday’s game against the Seahawks because of an illness that had him out of practice on the Thursday before the game.
He was back at practice Friday with full participation without an injury status, but was then downgraded to questionable early Sunday morning.
Head coach Jonathan Gannon said what happened on game day was that Melton “woke up sick, ill. I think it actually started a little bit in the middle of the night, and then I honestly didn’t think he was going to be able to play. (He) kind of rebounded and could play. We got him in there though. I thought he played well on teams, especially well on teams. He played some snaps on defense.”
Melton explained his ordeal to Cards Wire noting that “I had full body aches, headaches, chills, sweating. My neck swelled up and I couldn’t eat, had weight drop. Literally everything that could go wrong with your body was going wrong. I was getting better until I woke up on the plane when we landed in Seattle and everything came back. That night at some more and felt a little better when I went to bed.
“When I woke up, it was crazy. But the doctors, they did a good job making sure I was good to play. By the time I hit the bus on the way to the stadium, I figured I could play. When I got to the stadium, I thought I could definitely play. Shout out to our medical staff; it was all them. By the time kickoff came, I felt like myself again and during the game, I was feeling great.”
His defensive snaps were 44 percent after playing 79, 100, 97 and 62 the previous four games.
Meanwhile, special teams coordinator Jeff Rodgers loves the job Melton and Joey Blount are doing as gunners.
“When you have dominant gunner play, not that we’ve dominated all the time this season, (but) when you have dominant gunner play, you dictate to the return team that you’re either going to fair catch the ball or you’re going to do something about him. If you allocate resources to the outside, you don’t have as many things going on against the protection group. It certainly makes a difference when the gunners are playing well.
“And if they’ve got a skill set that mandates attention, that usually helps. And when you have two guys like that, now you got to make decisions because as special-teams coaches we’re in a unique position because we coach against players like Max and we have players like Max. So it’s what would we do against a player who’s playing really well at that position versus OK? Where’s the ball going? There are a lot of factors that play into it but having good gunners certainly helps your punter, your punt team, your field position all those things.”
Speaking of the punter, Blake Gillikin is excelling with a 49.5 average (11th in the NFL) and is tied for third in net average with AJ Cole of the Raiders at 44.3. Jacksonville’s Logan Cooke leads the league in net with 46.4 and Detroit’s Jack Fox is second at 46.1.
On 36 punts, Gillikin has 18 inside the 20, 12 have been fair catches, six were downed and only one resulted in a touchback.
Asked if he’s as consistent a punter as he’s ever coached, Rodgers said, “Yeah, I mean he’s had a good run; a good streak of games. His location, his hang time, his distance and he’s got a lot of things going for him. We gotta continue to cover it. We’ve gotta shore up some things protection-wise. I thought both gunners played really well in the game this week (and) Blake was pretty darn good.”
Against Seattle, he averaged 51.7 with a 50.2 net on six punts with four inside the 20 and four fair catches.
Rodgers also knows he likely won’t have Melton as a gunner for very long.
“Max is a really good player and he’s really fast,” Rodgers concluded. “He’s getting chances defensively and I think that he’s gonna progress and probably be a guy that won’t be playing gunner in the next few years. But that’s his role right now and he’s doing well.”
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