San Diego Chargers: Rich Biasaccia Will Make Everyone Forget About Steve Crosby

Last year, the San Diego Chargers special teams unit, headed by ex-special teams coordinator Steve Crosby, was disastrous. The unit allowed 21 points through the first five games, had a not-horrible stretch for the rest of the season, then collapsed in the last game of the season once more against the Denver Broncos. Punter Mike Scifres had five of his punts blocked last season, and one of his punts returned for a touchdown. That's a total of four returns for touchdowns to go along with five blocked punts. That should never happen in the NFL.

Of course, it's kind of a no-brainer that Steve Crosby was let go at the end of the season. The Chargers have had one of the better special teams units over the course of the past five years, but the 2010 unit was horrible enough to undermine all of that.

Now that the 2011 NFL season is almost here, Rich Biasaccia is now the Chargers special teams coach and things are looking good in San Diego, at least in terms of special teams.

That's because Biasaccia is a fine special teams coordinator. In case you don't know him, he was the special teams coordinator with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers in 2010, which had a solid—albeit, not the best—special teams unit in 2010. 

How do we measure such things? Advanced statistics, of course. 

The Football Outsiders compiled some really complex statistics for special teams, so hold onto your seats, okay? 

Last year, the Tampa Bay Buccaneers had a better special teams unit than the San Diego Chargers. That's pretty obvious, but that's also backed by statistics—the Chargers ranked dead last in Special Teams Defense-adjusted Value Over Average (DVOA), which (in part) measures the value of starting field position and the likelihood of scoring in such field position. Field position is critical in the game of football, and special teams has the biggest impact on this. In fact, the disparity between last and second to last in these rankings are far greater than any other two consecutively-ranked teams on the list. That means the Chargers were dead last, and it wasn't even close.

To compare, the Buccaneers—with Rich Biasaccia at the helm on special teams—ranked 18th. While that may not sound that awesome, it helps when you understand that the Bucs were also the ninth most disadvantaged team considering the elements of the game they don't control (i.e. how far the opposing kicker/punter kicks/punts). Even then, the low Special Teams DVOA the Bucs recorded (-0.4) had little to no effect on the Bucs' performance. Essentially, the Bucs' special teams neither hurt nor helped them. And in case you didn't know, the Bucs ranked fifth in 2009 (with Biasaccia still controlling things on that "side" of the ball) in Special Teams DVOA, meaning that season, the special teams did help the Bucs greatly.     

Basically, the San Diego Chargers are getting loads better by putting a guy at the helm who won't hurt or help the team with the special teams unit. Biasaccia has done well with the Bucs before, but even if he has a year like he did last year, it'll be a huge improvement for the Chargers, who essentially missed the playoffs solely because of poor special teams play. 

With flashy guys like Philip Rivers and Antoine Cason putting up big numbers for the Chargers, it's easy to forget that special teams are a crucial aspect of the game, too. That unit can make or break a team in some cases, and that was the case in 2010. Under special teams coach Steve Crosby, the unit broke the team; and though Biasaccia's unit won't make the team, it most certainly won't break the team that ranked in the top ten in nearly every statistical team category in the NFL. 

Carlos Sandoval is co-host of weekly NFL podcast, the Pigeon Toe. Follow him on Twitter: @CarloshSandoval