Assistant Head Coach/Special Teams Coordinator Bubba Ventrone (9.19.24)
Well, Bubba, first of all, we just had a zoom with Phil Dawson going into the Legends. Just wondering what are your thoughts on Phil, what he was able to accomplish for this football program?
“Yeah, I was informed that he’s going to be getting into the Legends. So that’s a great, great accomplishment for him. First off, incredible teammate, in addition to being a great person. And obviously was an incredible football player. Had the privilege to play with Phil all four of my years here and then also for two years in San Francisco (49ers). So him and I have a really good relationship. Really excited for him and his family. Yeah, Phil Dawson is an incredible person, man. He was a great leader for us. Even as a specialist, he was a vocal leader that spoke up on Saturday nights when we would have player only meetings and was just a great teammate and was awesome to play with.”
Since Phil, it’s been a stretch trying to find somebody to kind of fill his shoes. And Dustin (Hopkins), you know, the last year plus, has seemed good. Do you see some similarities between Phil and Dustin at all?
“I would say as far as the consistency on the field goals, yeah. I think there’s obviously similarities there. Elsewhere, I would say probably not. Completely different people. Yeah, two different types of guys, yeah. Both great people, though. Both great guys.”
Hopkins came here 50% on 50-and-up field goals in his career and he’s 10-for-10 with you guys. What’s happened to him? In conversation has he said to you what’s changed, or have you changed anything with him?
“No, I think that he’s just found a good — like I’ve always said here, whenever I’m asked about this, I think he’s just comfortable, I think he’s found a good routine. I feel like we’ve done a good job with him throughout the week. I think his process and his communication with Corey (Bojorquez) and Charley (Hughlett) has been really good. So I think that that’s all contributed to the results.”
Phil would always say he’s a football player and not just a kicker. Is that hard for guys to do since they’re so separated from the rest of the team a lot of the week?
“Yeah, I think to my knowledge, Phil played, from what I remember, I think he played linebacker in high school in addition to kicking. But no, he was a football player. I mean, mentality wise, he wasn’t afraid to stick his nose in there if he had to. And the way that he approached the game, the way that he was in meetings, he would take notes. He would understand the entire game plan week in and week out. And that’s why he was able to be such a good leader, because he understood the techniques that needed to be played and could help the young guys out. He really did a good job with that.”
He said that, on the Zoom today, that he was kind of kidding around a little bit about Dustin, that he doesn’t have it as hard as Phil did because they filled in some of the corners, so the wind doesn’t come in off the lake as much as it did. What are your thoughts on that?
“Phil would know better than anyone. We used to line up and there were times where we would just run — what we would call ‘check with me’ and we would have some signals and Phil would like, tell us, ‘hey, if they’re in this alignment, I’m putting the ball here’. And his placement was incredible. Like, he would be a dominant kicker with this new format. He would be phenomenal, he’d be ridiculous.”
How does Corey not get a game ball for that punt on Sunday?
“He got a game ball.”
Oh he did?
“Yeah, he got a game ball.”
Because after the game, Kevin (Stefanski) said he wasn’t giving him a game ball, but he would acknowledge him the next day.
“Oh, yeah, yeah. He was acknowledged the next day. He was acknowledged the next day, as were a handful of other special teamers in offensive and defensive players.”
After the safety, we know it’s always a free kick. They came out and they were gonna put the ball on the tee after they declared. So, for my own, I don’t know the rule, but could you do that? Could you go to a place kick?
“Yeah, yeah, you can.”
For the onside kick after a safety?
“Yes. Yes. You’re allowed. You’re allowed to. You’re allowed to put the ball on the tee after a safety, whether you declare for onside kick or not, you can still — you have the ability to punt the ball. If you do punt the ball in an onside kick, setting the risk is obviously, the ball has to stay in that 25-yard area. So, if it exits the… It would end up being the plus 45 or, I’m sorry, the -45 then you would… The ball would be granted to the receiving team. So, with the new — once you declare for onside kick, like, you can’t kick the ball deep. It has to stay in that 25-yard area. If it exits that, then the receiving team gets the ball.”
How good was that punt just given the context of everything?
“That’s a tough punt. That’s a tough play. I actually showed… There’s a handful of those, over the last probably ten years or so, where; the defensive team gets a safety, now the team that had the safety against them is kicking off, they’re trailing in the game, and they chose to hit an onside — like, at that point you wouldn’t have to declare, you could just do it back then. There was an example that I showed two weeks ago before the opener, in the event that that would happen, that we’d be able to handle it. And ironically, Rodney McLeod was on the unit in Philly (Philadelphia Eagles) when that happened. And so, you know, the thought process behind it is, you hit this sky punt on the hands team, the receiving team. Most times there’s not a lot of guys that can actually field a punt, on any roster. You know, some teams may have two, three, four at most maybe, that can actually catch a punt. So now you have eleven guys out there in this confined area and the ball is straight up in the air. You know, you have to do a good job, obviously, setting up your guys, anticipating what type of punt you’re going to get. And then trying to strategize exactly where you’re going to put your players to be able to, I would say, have a successful recovery or catch. So, I anticipated that’s what we were going to get. Thankfully, it worked out well. Had the guys in the right spots and I thought (James) Proche executed well and secured the catch. That’s a tough ball to hit, or that’s a tough ball to catch. And that punter (Logan Cooke) is super talented, he’s one of the best in the league.”
What’s going through your mind? I guess walk me through your emotions when you have that kickoff that looks like it’s gonna be your fumble, and then it gets called back. Like, what did you see? And did you think, did you know right away it was coming back?
“Well, I wasn’t watching Dustin run down the field, I was watching the play. But then once I saw the flag, I knew that it had to be that. And I could see on his face, you know, unfortunate. And he even communicated to me that he was almost like, felt conditioned to just get down and cover. And it’s not an excuse, but we gotta make that correction. That can’t happen again. That’s such a big play in the game. I think we were up 10-nothing at that point, if we get the ball in the — I think we were recovered it on the 20. If we get the ball on the 20-yard line, up ten, right now, we’re already in field goal range at worst case. Yeah, that can’t happen. We gotta do a better job of focusing and locking in on the rules and executing better.”
How much could you sort of empathize with the (New York) Giants last week, losing their kicker to a hamstring? It’s similar to what you guys went through down in Houston (Texans) last year. Losing them that early, how much of a shuffling is that? I mean, what’s sort of the process as a special teams coordinator to try to handle that?
“Yeah, that’s tough. That’s a tough play to deal with. Unfortunately, you know, he got hurt on the play and not to make matters worse is that there was a penalty called against Washington that nullified the touchdown. So in the grand scheme, you know, he really didn’t have to chase it down. But unfortunate that he’s injured and, you know, he’s been a really good player in his career, Graham Gano, and hopefully gets back quick.”
Bubba, you touched on it a little bit, saying that special teams guys got recognized on Monday. But when you guys went back and looked at the game as a whole, how impressed were you with the impact that special teams Corey, Dustin, et cetera, had on Sunday’s win?
“Yeah, I will say after week one we weren’t happy with how we played, obviously. I thought we prepared well for that game. We didn’t execute nearly to the level that we were expecting our guys to do so. And I really just — me and the head coach, we challenged our guys to play better and to play harder, and I thought they did a really good job of responding and bouncing back in that game.”
You put yourself out there, a little bit, and kind of called out the lack of effort and the fact that you guys didn’t play hard enough, and some people backed you up on that; like Myles (Garrett) and Amari (Cooper) said the same thing. I’m just wondering, you’re saying that they responded well. What kind of feedback did you get for kind of putting yourself out there like that?
“Yeah, I mean, I don’t necessarily think I put myself out there like that. I just feel like I was talking — I know I had mentioned the team in that statement, but I was really talking towards my unit. I felt like in that game, we just didn’t play to the level of expectation that we have for our unit. I think overall moving forward, we will have great contributions in all three phases of the game with effort. We’ve never had an issue with our players effort here and I think our players play extremely hard. You know, it’s the NFL. It’s the NFL and the other team has a really good team. You know, every team has a good roster. Every team… it’s a battle every week and your guys are going to play hard and sometimes you’re going to get beat. And that’s just… it’s inevitable, it’s going to happen at some point.”
So (Jaelon) Darden is back but was that just gymnastics? Roster gymnastics that he comes off a pretty good game, in game one and then waived?
“I mean, I would say this, like with the roster. I mean, this is everyone’s roster. In the league that, you know, there’s guys that are signed, released. It’s just, it is what it is. I mean, each game is different. So you identify what you think you need in that game and try to prepare and have the personnel that you need to put yourself in the best spot to win. I felt like, you know, James (Proche) did a nice job in the game and obviously came up big for us in the end.”
I think through two weeks there’s only been two misses. I think kickers are 35 of 37 or something like that on 50-yard kicks. When you look at that stat, like what goes into your mind? What do you think plays a role in the amount of success that kickers are having?
“Yeah, there are a lot of talented kickers in the NFL. A lot. I want to say after week one, there was two misses over 50 and there was like over 25 attempts or so. I think this past week there might have been another two that were missed. I think 16 attempts, somewhere in that range. But, you know, attribute it to the talent that’s out there. You know, this is a talented league with crazy skill at every position and it’s pretty impressive to see the percentage to be that high. It really is.”
On that Corey punt that goes out at the two. It feels like there’s some luck involved. Some of them hit and bounce in and some of them hit and bounce sideways. First of all, how much luck? And then why can’t he just kick it out of bounds? I know that used to be something that more punters did. Do you feel like guys have gone away from just kind of trying to get it to go out of bounds at the five?
“There’s definitely a little bit of risk as far as just trying to hit the ball out of bounds because at times you don’t want to be too aggressive or too short on that kick. Depending on where you’re at in the field — I honestly can’t remember where we were on the field when he hit that ball. But as far as it checking out of bounds, it was just a great punt, just great execution. I know he’s been working on that. That was a point of emphasis for us going into this season was to be better in the plus 50 area. He’s put in the time, so it was good to see the results on that play.”
You talked a lot about the dynamic kicking rule, exotic plays somewhere down the line. So, I know you have a pet play somewhere down the line. My question is, do you practice it every week or wait for the week that you intend to use it?
“There’s things that we’ll work every single week, that we won’t necessarily run in a game. You want to keep your guys sharp. You want to keep your techniques sharp. So, I would say that we’re going to continue, in all phases, to be able to get as many generic looks and techniques as we can. The game is about fundamentals, so we’re always going to work our fundamentals in every phase and then apply them to the schemes that we’re using in those particular weeks.”