Shelly is under appreciated, but he never had the leg to step up from 45+. Tiffin could hit from 50+ with some consistency.
And it's Arenas as the best PR by far. He may well be the best of all time.
Best Punt returner out of Maze, C. Jones, or Javier Arenas
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And it's Arenas as the best PR by far. He may well be the best of all time.
Nothing against him, any more than I have anything against Jones or Maze. But, Tiffin had range he didn't. Of course, we'd all love to have him last year, or heck this year.
I'm not even saying that Alabama's special teams are bad, relatively speaking. It's not normal to have a guy like Arenas, or even a kicker like Tiffin. But, I don't think people realize how important those two players were to the success of the 2008 and 2009 football teams.
I consider special teams a weakness for Alabama since then, primarily when I'm talking about championship caliber. To give an example, we all remember the blocks made in the 2009 Tennessee game, which also happened to be special teams, but how many people remember that Tiffin went 4/4 including a 50 yard kick? In the (close) Auburn game that year, Arenas returned one kickoff for 46 yards and two punts for 67 yards. Special teams put Alabama over the top that year, while you could argue special teams proved to be Alabama's undoing last year, and in their only 2011 loss.
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As I recall, we had several kick returns brought back during that time because of dumb holding or block in the back penalties. Seems ridiculous that Javy finished behind Wes Welker for all-time kick return yardage.
I still don't think its that close. Arenas, IMO, was a much more dangerous return man than Palmer. The likelihood that Javy would take it the house or completely flip the field was much greater than when Palmer returned a kick.
I think Arenas, Maze, then Jones.
Arenas didn't have the top speed of the other 2, but was fearless and would nearly always make the first man miss.
Maze had better speed and more elusive. I think he would have scored in the NC game had he not pulled a hamstring.
i like CJ, but he is so tentative and lacks explosive speed through tackles. He has good hands, but plays scared sometimes.
Arenas didn't have the top speed of the other 2, but was fearless and would nearly always make the first man miss.
Maze had better speed and more elusive. I think he would have scored in the NC game had he not pulled a hamstring.
i like CJ, but he is so tentative and lacks explosive speed through tackles. He has good hands, but plays scared sometimes.
I have to go with the Deuce on this one. He was so electric. He made things happen when no one else helped him at all. At least with Saban, you know you have a better team to help you. Palmer would fake out the opposing team then fake out Bama's team. Still my all time favorite player.
Of course, had Prothro not gotten hurt, he would be in this discussion.
Never saw a quicker man on a football field than David Palmer. Put him at receiver or QB, he was going to do his job well. Shame he missed the wishbone era, a truly dangerous runner.
Palmer doesn't hold a candle to Arenas. He was electric as a WR, RB and QB, but if you're just going by punt returns it's Arenas.
Palmer:
Punt Ret Kick Ret
Year School Conf Class Pos G Ret Yds Avg ▾ TD Ret Yds Avg TD
1991 Alabama SEC WR 11 24 386 16.1 3 10 257 25.7 0
1992 Alabama SEC WR 9 28 236 8.4 1 6 145 24.2 0
1993 Alabama SEC RB 12 31 244 7.9 0 20 439 22.0 0
Career Alabama 83 866 10.4 4 36 841 23.4 0
Arenas:
Punt Ret Kick Ret
Year School Conf Class ▴ Pos G Ret Yds Avg TD Ret Yds Avg TD
*2009 Alabama SEC DB 13 32 493 15.4 1 19 551 29.0 0
*2008 Alabama SEC DB 14 41 650 15.9 3 26 614 23.6 0
*2007 Alabama SEC DB 12 21 323 15.4 1 27 657 24.3 0
*2006 Alabama SEC DB 13 31 286 9.2 2 18 344 19.1 0
Career Alabama 125 1752 14.0 7 90 2166 24.1 0
Thanks for posting that TideMom & I remember that play like it happened yesterday..The look on the faces of The Hawg's faithful & on Darren McFadden told the story..It was like a strong gut shot cause you could see the air being sucked out of their players right after that play..It's a look we come to expect from our opponents, as the fight in them, leaves their body & they want the game over with cause they know they won't beat us..
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Those actually look pretty close. looking at the average and even TD's. The big difference is that Palmer didn't have the help that Arenas had. I love Arenas as much as anyone, but these numbers don't show a big difference. Palmer didn't have near as many attempts at returning and still had nearly as many TD's. Career avg is within 1 yd. Arenas had 40 more attempts. Good defenses will give you better field position to return.
Has to be Javier Arenas considering he missed the all time punt return record by just a few yards.
Palmer was great in 1991, but after that he averaged 8 yards a return and only had 1 TD in 2 years. Arenas' stats are more impressive. He continued to be productive after teams knew how good he was. Palmer had a huge drop off after year 1.
i'd go with Javi, then Maze, then Jones. But Palmer was on another level as a return man. If you watched him live, then you know what i mean. i've never to this day seen a return man get by 3-4 tacklers that were standing there in position waiting on the ball to drop in his hands on a punt return. he did that several times.
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