The Chargers-Raiders late Monday night game didn’t end until well after midnight in Chicago, but Bears special teams coach Dave Toub was apparently watching.
Raiders long snapper Jon Condo left the game against the Chargers with an injury and backup long snapper Travis Goethel made three bad snaps on three Raiders punts, and as I wrote after the game, every coach in the league who saw that had to be thinking he’d give his backup long snapper extra practice time this week. That’s exactly what Toub did at today’s Bears practice, giving backup long snapper Matt Spaeth a full period of work on his long snapping.
“He got a whole period today,” Toub told the Chicago Tribune. “Surprise, surprise. But it wasn’t just because of the game last night, but something like that definitely makes you think about it. He’s been working on it and he’s been doing it pre-practice.”
The Raiders have acknowledged that they regret the fact that they rarely gave Goethel practice time as a long snapper. Don’t expect other teams to repeat that mistake.