Matthew Slater acknowledges early-season struggles of Patriots' special teams unit

FOXBOROUGH -- The Patriots have built their rep as one of the best special teams’ units in the league over the last decade, but through the five games of 2017, that group has seen its share of struggles.


Special teams captain Matthew Slater has been hobbled with hamstring and knee issues, while fellow special teams standout Nate Ebner has dealt with a shoulder injury. Another compounding problem has been the getting-to-know-you process that the team has gone through with guys like Marquis Flowers and Johnson Bademosi, who were acquired shortly before the start of the season.

According to Slater, it’s all played a role in some slippage across the board.

“There have been a lot of moving parts all year long,” he told Bostonsportsjournal.com after Thursday’s walkthrough. “Hopefully now, we’re getting guys healthy, we have guys playing together for a little while, get some continuity going (and) clean up the penalties, which has been disappointing for us thus far. I think we lead the league in penalties. Just having that attention to detail and getting used to playing together and knowing what to expect out there will be big for us. We can’t continue to hurt our football team with penalties.”

To his point, penalties have been a major issue for the New England special teams unit. As a group, they have already hit double digits on the season, the most of any special teams unit in the league through five games and more than any other positional grouping on the Patriots’ roster.

“Some of it is a lack of focus, a lack of discipline,” Slater said when asked if there were commonalities in New England’s special teams penalties this season. “Some of it (happens when) you’re playing right on the edge and penalties happen when you’re playing aggressive and playing fast. It’s a combination of things. I think we understand where we sit, penalty-wise, (and we) understand that we need to do better. And hopefully, we can do that.”