THE SAUERBRUN REPORT

TSR’s Punter of the Week:
Spencer Lanning – Cleveland Browns

Who is he?
As is the case with many professional punters, Lanning’s path to a full-time job in the NFL has been long and winding. The 25-year-old South Carolina native overcame four rejections by four NFL clubs over two full seasons before making the Browns in camp just prior to the 2013 season. Undrafted in 2011 after a solid college career with Steve Spurrier at South Carolina, Lanning first latched on with the Bears. Subsequent stints with the Jags, Jets and Browns didn’t work out but Lanning went so far as to toil for a stretch in the now-defunct United Football League. Lanning battled journeyman TJ Conley in camp last summer for the starting Browns job and then staved off another challenge from undrafted rook Colton Schmidt. Lanning was an excellent youth soccer player but was forced to quit the game as a junior in high school after a serious knee injury. With help and encouragement from his Dad, Lanning then devoted himself fully to kicking a football. He can kick short field goals in a pinch and is a big fan of Clemson in addition to his alma mater. Lanning’s self-made creations on the mobile app Vine are funny and creative. His longtime girlfriend is Brittany Jasenski, the 2011 winner of the Miss New York City pageant.

The Lanning stat line vs. Chicago 12-15-13:
5 punts. 211 yards total. 42.2 yards per. 38.0 net.

The punts in detail:
1. With stray snowflakes swirling above the playing field and temps in the mid-20’s, Lanning stepped onto Cleveland’s well-kept natural grass field for his first punt early in the second quarter of a 3-3 ballgame. Scores of empty seats in the upper level could be seen when the Fox broadcast included occasional long shots of the venue. Some sections weren’t even cleared of snow that had fallen the night before. Lanning wore a white long sleeve shirt underneath his football jersey and had a fanny pack strapped to his waist. The fanny pack looks ridiculous on any human but especially on a man playing football. Perhaps Lanning (#5) was using the fanny pack to warm his hands – or perhaps to store written instructions on how best to avoid allowing Bears returner Devin Hester to get the ball with even a small patch of open field ahead of him. Standing at his own 15-yard-line, Lanning blew on his hands and rubbed them together before catching the ball from long snapper Christian Yount at chin level. The boot was a good one. It landed on the hard turf at Chicago’s 27 and bounced forward another eight yards before Browns cover man Johnson Bademosi downed it. It was a 50-yard punt with no return. Hester appeared distracted by the prospect of teammate Zack Bowman unknowingly making contact with the ball and barked warnings as the pigskin fell to the ground. Any time you can keep Hester from returning it, one should be happy – and this Lanning effort had the additional benefit of backing the Bears up pretty good. On the subsequent Bears offensive series, Jay Cutler threw a pick six and you can make the case that Lanning’s punt played a small role in that eventual score.

2. The rock was cold and Lanning caught it less than flush on his second punt just before halftime. The half-thud was audible as he struck it. Hester could only watch as ball squirted around on the ground well ahead of where he expected it. It was a 36-yard punt with no return. Lanning looked miffed but when you’re punting against Hester, I think you take the shank over the long return. Cutler came on with 90 seconds to go in half and immediately took the Bears to paydirt for a big score. I don’t know what the Bears do at season’s end with Cutler. It’s such a tough call given his maddening inconsistency but I guarantee somebody scoops him fast if the Bears let him walk. That team very well could be the J-E-T-S, Jets, Jets, Jets and wouldn’t that be fun if he has any kind of pass-catchers and a head coach other than Rex Ryan. But I digress.

3. On for a pooch early in the fourth quarter, Lanning had his hands in his fanny pack which I think confirms the idea those silly things contain some kind of warming action. The punt landed at the Bears 8-yard-line and would have rolled nicely all the way to just before the goal line if it weren’t for an overanxious Julian Posey touching it prematurely at the 5 before backing off. It was a 32-yard punt and again – no return.

4. Now in crunch time, Lanning came on in a 24-24 game and was asked to come up in a serious, pressure spot. If he launched one all out from his own end zone, Hester was ready to return it. That’s how it ended up going down. Lanning crushed the ball from the goal line. Hester backed up to receive it at his own 45 and got a wall of protection to his right. He curled around the clearly well-rehearsed Bears return set-up and found a seam down the right side. Lanning had moved swiftly into that alley and pushed Hester out of bounds at about the Cleveland 35. What was interesting about the television coverage of the play was a trippy visual image created by a Fox on-field camera operator. With the lens situated on the ground perhaps 10 yards behind Lanning, the wide-angle shot included a large wind turbine spinning behind the opposite end zone. The totality of the picture as Lanning unleashed the punt was as pretty as a professional water-color painting hanging in a Manhattan art gallery. The punt was 47 yards and the return was 21. Lanning saved a longer return but probably should have continued the game-long pattern of not allowing Hester to touch and scamper with it.

5. Punting a football in freezing cold conditions isn’t easy. Even if you nicely execute all of the key steps prior to launch, the ball still won’t travel like it would if the air was moderately warm. I believe the football becomes less buoyant in extreme cold. Maybe buoyant isn’t the right word. Something about the energy one gets when a foot hits a football gets lost when it’s 20 degrees. Or does it? Denver kicker Matt Prater kicked a 64-yard field goal in 14-degree weather the Sunday before last. Perhaps the thin air at Mile High mitigates the effects of a cold football but I think most punters will tell you it’s hard to get distance in frigid climes. Lanning’s final punt should be viewed in this context. He appeared to hit it as hard as a punter could and it was recorded as a 46 yarder with no return.

The Sound of a Punt:
Jim Donovan has been the radio voice of the Brownies since ’99 and is joined in the booth by Doug Dieken. Donovan has battled chronic lymphocytic leukemia for more than a decade but you wouldn’t know it listening to his broadcast. His energy level is high and his voice sounds younger than his years. The clip below is the description of Lanning’s big fourth quarter punt that ended with the punter getting credit for a tackle. Browns games can be heard in Cleveland on WKNR-AM (ESPN 850).

The Punt-osis:
Lanning had a nightmarish game four weeks back when the Bengals blocked one of his punts and returned it for a TD. Cinci partially blocked another punt in that game, too. A few days later the Browns brought in three unemployed punters for tryouts (Zoltan Mesko included) but ended sticking with Lanning. That’s probably the right move given the fact most blocked punts are the fault of one’s protection up front. No matter what happens going forward, Lanning will have quite a scrapbook entry from his week three outing in Minnesota. Against the Vikes, Lanning executed a fake field goal as holder and threw a TD pass to the tight end. He had a great game punting and also kicked an extra point and launched a kickoff when regular kicker Billy Cundiff got hurt. According to an AP story on that game, it was the first time since 1968 that a player punted, threw a TD pass and kicked a PAT in a single game. Lanning’s 2013 in sum should be enough to maintain incumbency in Cleveland next summer but punters can’t be choosers. The revolving door spins fast – and sometimes unfairly – for NFL punters. It takes a special type to punt on the shore of Lake Erie and Lanning seems to have the skill set to leg up, down, short and long. I hope he sticks.

-On a vote of four-nil, the New York City Council Committee on Technology approved a non-binding resolution Wednesday that urges the operator of the area’s three major airports to end a long practice of charging passengers for wireless internet. As it is now, people waiting for flights at LaGuardia, Kennedy and Newark pay through the nose in order to gain wi-fi access. The Port Authority’s deal with Boingo to profit from Wi-Fi is expiring and the City Council resolution is aimed at pressuring the Port to go the way of most American airports which make internet access available for nothing.

-United Airlines will pay almost triple what it’s costing now to keep its name on the Chicago arena that’s home to both the Bulls and Blackhawks. United’s 20-year extension to retain naming rights on the madhouse on Madison will cost the air carrier $100 million according to Chicago Business Journal reporter Lewis Lazare. The original 20-year deal reportedly cost United $36 mil. Considering a 30-second Super Bowl television commercial now costs upwards of $4 mil, I’d say United is getting decent value on its forthcoming $5 mil annual expenditure when you add up the exposure.

A full three months after its launch, it’s time for a progress report on the new Q70 bus route connecting LaGuardia Airport with the heart of Queens.

The MTA rolled out the all-new Q70 on September 8, 2013. It won immediate ridership because of its reliably quick trip between the Jackson Heights transit hub and all of LaGuardia’s terminals except for the Marine Air. The ride between the two points in either direction is consistently less than ten minutes.

The route’s popularity will certainly grow as word of its existence spreads. The speed of the ride has far exceeded my expectations. Traffic on the portion of the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway taken by the 70 between the on-ramp at 35th Avenue and the Grand Central has not been a factor no matter the day or time.

That’s not to say there have been significant flaws in the rollout of the Q70. All of the problems are correctable. Given the time that’s passed however, there’s no evidence the MTA has the micro-awareness necessary to see the snags and move to make easy remediation. The most glaring concern is the complete absence of structure and order at the bus stop used by airport-bound riders at Jackson Heights.

As it is now, the Q70 headed to LaGuardia stops about 20 yards west of 75th Street on the southern side of Roosevelt Avenue. A sign marks the spot but because there’s so much human and vehicular chaos on both the sidewalk and street, there’s no coherent lineup and/or boarding process. Up until a few days ago, two taco trucks and a candied nut vendor gobbled up space just east of the stop. Those businesses have been suddenly run out thanks to the opening of a hideous Famous Famiglia pizza outlet (more on that later) in the long-vacant corner retail space of the transit depot, but my point is there’s simply no room on the sidewalk there for dozens of people (some with luggage) waiting for an airport bus. You have a constant stream of darting black gypsy sedans and apple-green-colored outerborough taxis pulling up on Roosevelt for fares. They spew exhaust into the faces of those waiting for the bus. Even the MTA parks its service vehicles on the street where people line up. This forces the bus to stop at unpredictable, irregular spots which causes a free-for-all as riders bum-rush the open door.

The fix on this is simple. The MTA must grab one of the three dedicated bus lanes that connect Broadway with 75th. Even it means displacing the now less-important Q33. Those covered lanes instill order and fairness to the bus boarding process and collect bystanders away from a pedestrian-clogged sidewalk. Since the MTA has declared the Q70 to be a cornerstone of their effort to improve public transit at the airport, it deserves to be treated as such. The MTA needs to give the Q70 a dedicated bus lane in Jackson Heights and do it now before people get discouraged by the messy, makeshift stop that is in place at the moment.

The other part of this that may require further time and study is what to do with the Woodside stop on this route. Nobody is using it. The 70’s first airport-bound stop is at 61st and Roosevelt underneath the 7 train and adjacent to the LIRR station. For some reason nobody is boarding the bus there. Sometimes you see one or two people on the bus when it reaches Jackson Heights but never more than a few. On the Queens-bound runs, everybody is getting off in the Heights.

The logic for a Woodside stop on the Q70 is try to convince Long Island Rail Road users from Nassau and Suffolk County to consider public transit when using LaGuardia Airport. This may take time. I’m ok with the MTA keeping the Woodside stop but there should be a much greater effort to inform Long Islanders of the Q70’s existence.

The only other beef I have is my own freaked-out fear of speed when you get AJ Foyt behind the wheel of the Q70 and he puts pedal to metal on the BQE. Nobody on the bus has the option of wearing a seat belt and those who stand (or sit in the last row) will go flying should there be a sudden stop from what I’m guessing to be speeds in excess of 60 MPH. Some day, a speeding Q70 is gonna get people hurt and the NTSB is gonna ask the MTA why there are no seat belts on the bus.

But back to that Famous Famiglia pizza shop that now occupies a big chunk of the Jackson Heights transit depot. I already discussed this at length when Famiglia won the bidding process to take over the space. But now that it’s here, I’d like to repeat my disgust that a nothing-special chain outlet rather than a unique business with neighborhood roots got the lease. My councilman Daniel Dromm is celebrating Famiglia’s arrival without thinking of the potential harm it may inflict on the neighborhood’s existing pizzerias owned by regular guys. It kinda kills the vibe on Rosie Avenue right there, too. Yeah, the free market will sort it out I guess, but Famiglia will snare lots of customers simply because of its dream-like location.

-I quit cable television today. For the first time in my life, I cut it off completely. I returned the box and remote control Wednesday afternoon. I am done with cable. I didn’t do it because of any service problem with Time Warner. In fact, I think Time Warner is the best cable provider I‘ve ever had. I simply got tired of paying the bill without watching enough stuff to justify it. Instead of reducing service, I quit it. My high-speed internet access will continue via Time Warner. My monthly bill from them will go from $200 to $55. I’ve thought about doing this for a long while. I’d rather use the cash to buy records, go to games, take trips, etc. My satellite radio pulls in audio descriptions of just about any sporting event of importance and I can get video highlights the next day. I listen to a lot of radio on the internet and can watch C Span and the local news on the web. I plan on getting an over-the-air antenna soon to pick up the network stations just in case hell breaks loose in the world but for now I’m going no TV and so far so good. Interestingly, there was zero resistance from two Time Warner representatives as they helped me cut the cord.