ALAMEDA – If anything, Johnnie Lee Higgins is resilient.
The second-year wide receiver has had his share of mishaps on special teams:
• Four fumbled punts as a rookie.
• Catching a kickoff and running out of bounds – at his own 2-yard line – last month in Baltimore, leaving his coach dumbfounded.
• Fumbling a kickoff earlier this month that led to a Carolina Panthers touchdown and the Raiders signing a new kick returner.
Through it all, Higgins never lost his swagger.
"The little mishap on that kickoff return (in Baltimore) set me back a little bit, but I bounced back," Higgins said.
Did he ever.
The Raiders hadn't returned a punt for a touchdown since Dec. 28, 2003 – until Higgins broke through in each of his past two games.
"No matter what you do, you have to have a swagger, you have to have confidence within yourself," Higgins said. "If you don't have confidence within yourself, great things are not going to come."
Higgins darted 93 yards for a score Nov. 16 in Miami – the first touchdown for the Raiders in 12 quarters.
He followed that up Sunday in Denver with an 89-yard return for a touchdown that gave the Raiders a 10-3 lead just before halftime.
Higgins is tied for the NFL lead in punt returns for touchdowns (two), returns of more than 20 yards (five) and returns of more than 40 yards (two). His 12.5-yard average on punt returns ranks fourth in the NFL.
"When you have someone that can change field position, change the game for you, it makes playing with them that much easier," linebacker and special-teams standout Isaiah Ekejiuba said. "It makes it easier to go out there and get your blocks because if it's between him and the kicker, he wins that matchup."
Higgins was a prolific punt returner at UTEP (23.4 average as a senior), which was one of the reasons the Raiders selected him in the third round of the 2007 NFL draft.
Higgins showed flashes of being a good kickoff returner, but the gaffe in Baltimore and fumble against the Panthers were enough to force the Raiders to seek help, which they did in claiming Justin Miller off waivers from the New York Jets.
Interim head coach Tom Cable thinks it's no coincidence Higgins has found success with the addition of Miller, which allows him to focus on punts.
"A kickoff returner is like saying, 'You're going to get in a head-on collision, and you're a Volkswagen and here comes a Mack truck,' " Cable said. "And so that may distract you a little bit. You've got to be wired a little different for (kickoff returns)."
But there's still plenty for Higgins to work on.
When he failed to execute his back flip after scoring in Denver and landed on his hands, Higgins was assessed a 15-yard penalty for unsportsmanlike conduct.
It's a quirky rule. If he'd landed on his feet, there would have been no flag.
"If I don't land on my feet and I use my hands, it's a penalty," Higgins said. "If I use my hands to flip and spring off, that's a penalty. So it's a penalty either way. So I just need to get my acrobatic skills up and do more than that."
Read Jason Jones' Raiders blog at www.sacbee.com/ raidersblog.
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