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MINNEAPOLIS -- Minnesota Vikings punt returner Marcus Sherels has kept a firm hold on his job and endeared himself to special-teams coordinator Mike Priefer over the past three seasons in large part because of his reliability. Sherels is sure-handed, generally makes good decisions and has been able to keep the Vikings out of bad situations on special teams. This season, though, Sherels has made a couple decisions to fair-catch punts that would have likely rolled into the end zone for a touchback, including one in Buffalo last Sunday where he called for a fair catch and fielded the ball at the Vikings' 6, earning him a sideline conversation with an irate Priefer. Reviewing the punt, Priefer could understand what led Sherels to make the decision he did, but he still didn't want to see it happen again. Allow the special-teams coordinator to explain, in his typical expository style. "It was a windy day; they’re kicking with the wind," Priefer said. "It wasn’t a plus-50 situation (where the Bills are punting in Vikings territory). He was actually aligned up at the 12-yard line. We had them, I think, at 50 yards because their punter was hitting the ball really well. When he went back to catch it, he didn’t realize where he was and you could see it on tape; he kind of hesitated about the 8-(yard line), which is his rule, and then at the last second it drifted a couple more yards. "In hindsight, you hope he doesn’t fair-catch that -- that he grabs it and goes, because I think he had some room. The second point would be, let it go in the end zone, because the wind was blowing pretty good. It was probably, you can classify that as a poor decision and hopefully won’t make those going forward." Priefer said he doesn't want to see Sherels back up to field punts that deep in his own territory, especially when he has opportunities to block a gunner and hinder a team's ability to down the ball before it goes into the end zone. "He’s actually had one of those, I think, against Atlanta (on Sept. 28), where he did a really nice job," Priefer said. "No fair catch, bluffed the catch, slowed down the gunner a little bit and gave him a little nudge and knocked him off. The ball hit at the 2 and went in the end zone for a touchback. That was a big play for us. It was obviously 18 or 20 yards of field position." Sherels has been accused of being too cautious with punts at times over the years, but as Priefer said, Sherels is more aggressive with deciding to return punts than he was in his first years as a returner. As solid as he's been at fielding punts and staying out of trouble, he's understandably earned some leeway when he makes occasional mistakes. " I think Marcus has done a really nice job, or he wouldn’t still be here as our punt returner for a fourth straight year," Priefer said. "He’s a quality young man, he’s going to work hard, he’s going to do everything we ask him to do."
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