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Each week 49ers.com will feature a column dedicated to special teams and those who play on them. These teamers will share their breakdowns of the upcoming opponent and give you some insight on some aspects of special teams you might not be too familiar with. In the eleventh Teams Talk installment of the 2009 season, rookie running back Glen Coffee shares his thoughts on the 49ers Sunday home matchup against the Jacksonville Jaguars.**In college I was on the punt team and that was it. But I knew coming into the NFL as a rookie that I would have to help out on special teams immediately.
I knew it was Frank Gore's team and I knew my role would primarily be on special teams. Having said that, I just try to take as much pride in special teams as I possibly can being a running back.
I don't mind contact when I'm playing football. Normally I'm on the other side of it as a running back. But if I have to go in there and get dirty – I don't mind it all. When you're playing football, you have to have a certain mentality.
Even if you don't consider yourself tough off the field, you have to still play tough. You have to sort of accept the reality of the situation that you're in. But luckily, I grew up not minding the contact. I'm used to it. They physicality of the game is something I love the most. It comes pretty natural to me.
I've been on a bunch of our different special teams units, but things change almost every week. Sometimes I'll be on three different teams and sometimes if someone is injured, I'll be on four teams. Sometimes I'll be on two teams. So basically, I have to know them all.
My favorite is probably punt team. Our punter Andy Lee he definitely makes our job easier, that's why I like it so much. Because of the hang time on his punts, we're able to get to the returner much faster. I think we sometimes take him for granted. He definitely makes all of our jobs easier.
Our special teams coordinator Al Everest is great about getting us ready for every opponent. We've seen on film and from our meetings that they play very hard on special teams and they take it very seriously. They're a very detail-oriented group, just like our team.
For us, the main thing we have to do is hustle down the field. We've seen that they like to set up a lot of wall returns, so we have to get down the field early this week and not let them set that up.
They have a rookie receiver Mike Thomas who does a lot of their returning, but I don't really know too much about him. I met him at the Scouting Combine back in Indy and I know what he looks like, but I've never seen him play. He played ball on the other side of the country when we were in college.
This week we're really going to have to man up. We've had some losses in the past couple of games and so we don't really have any other choice but to man up. If we don't win – it's nobody's fault but ours. That's just how we're going to approach the game this Sunday.
