Assistant Head Coach/Special Teams Coordinator Bubba Ventrone (12.19.24)
What’d you see out of Dustin (Hopkins) last week during practice and do you think the break is going to do him good?
“I think so. He hit the ball well in practice. Out of all the kicks that we had, he made them all. I think it was a good week for him to kind of reset. I think coaches did a good job, had a plan, obviously, to give him some rest and just take a step away and just kind of refocus and try to finish out the season strong.”
Did he complain at all on getting a week off?
“It was coach’s (Kevin Stefanski) decision.”
As a special teams coordinator, what can you do specifically to help a kicker in a slump?
“I would say make him feel as comfortable as he can, keep him in his routine, focus on the basics and the fundamentals of his techniques and you’ll hopefully get the results you want.”
Are you knowledgeable enough for a kicker to correct a technique?
“For sure, yeah. When you watch the film, it’s obvious to see what we need to get corrected.”
After the muff the week before, how crestfallen were you that that happened on the first touch of the kickoff?
“Yeah, it was unfortunate. We got to do a better job of obviously possessing the ball. It was a short ball that he was coming up to get. Didn’t look like he had great control of the ball once he secured it and it gets knocked out from behind him. It’s unfortunate.”
In a moment, situation specific to that, what is the teaching?
“Don’t fumble.”
Beyond that – you said on a short ball…?
“Yeah, I mean, so he comes up, the ball is mishit, and it was noticeably short. James (Proche II) comes up and it didn’t look like he had great control of it initially. Once he put it away, he didn’t have it secured well enough. I would just say just making sure you have all the points of pressure on the ball at all times. And here’s the thing, too, like in the kicking game, especially obviously as a returner, you don’t know where the bodies are that are coming after you, so you have to assume that they’re coming from everywhere. So, you really need to do a better job of having your elbow tucked, all the points of pressure on the ball that are necessary. We always talk about, ‘wrist above the elbow,’ to have that thing secured, not waving it away from your body.”
Will he (Proche) get another chance this week?
“There’s a chance he could be back there, yeah.”
What did you see on that illegal formation on the punt team that they called? Was that a legit penalty? I mean, I don’t often see a lot of those called.
“Yeah, I would say it’s been an emphasis this year. I would say specifically, the tackles being on the line of scrimmage. Mohamoud (Diabate) was not — It wasn’t egregious, I would say that. But we need to do a better job of just making sure and confirming with the official on the outside that we’re good.”
What have you seen out of Cade (York) since he’s been kicking down in Cincinnati?
“He looks comfortable. He looks in good rhythm. He’s doing a good job on contacting the ball, working at a good tempo. I think that his elevation looks good on his kicks.”
Just special teams in general, it seems like every week we’re asking you about something that went wrong the previous week, or a lot of times it feels like that. And you’re known for being one of the best special teams coordinators in the NFL. So, how do you account for all of the sort of mishaps that have been going on?
“I think we’ve had a couple mishaps, obviously, the last two weeks we’ve mishandled the ball, haven’t possessed the ball well. Our number one priority for us is we talk about getting the ball back to the offense and the last two weeks we didn’t do a good job of that. So, I think that we have made plays, and there’s been a couple times where we haven’t answered the bell. Look, I would say it’s a young group that we’re coaching up, and I definitely have seen a lot of improvement, though, with our group. I think they’re playing really hard at that. I think we’ve had pretty good production in the return game the last few weeks. And then I think our punt return unit has been solid. Corey’s (Bojorquez) been doing a good job. I think that, overall, I think we’ve been decent. Obviously, we have some blemishes on our resume this year.”
Jaelen (Gill) or Kaden (Davis), are either of them possible options?
“Those guys have fielded balls for us, yes.”
With Nick (Chubb) being with the broken foot and Jerome (Ford), I would assume getting more time on offense, is he still an option in the kickoff return game?
“Yes. We’re going to continue to get all those guys opportunities. Made a nice run last week, which is good. So, our guys are feeling good on that unit and feeling confident. So that’s been good.”
Does he have a real knack for that, Jerome? I mean, is he one of those guys that he can kind of hit the seam quicker than others?
“Definitely. I mean, you saw him break away on the run on the offensive play, how much speed he has, and he gets his momentum going fast. He hits his top-end speed pretty good. And he likes doing it. That’s the thing, you have to be willing to do it and to be able to hit the seam and hit it hard and he’s done a good job for us.”
It seems like every week I see somebody get a ball punched out. It seems like that’s become more of a weapon. Do you guys work on that a ton? Is it more so than when you played?
“I would agree with you on that. I think that there’s been more of an emphasis in the NFL in recent years as far as attacking the football relative to like years ago. I think that there’s a big emphasis on it. We emphasized it a lot in training camp. I thought we did a good job attacking the football. Probably could even do a better job of it, obviously. But yeah, we always are going to try to do that, and I definitely see more of an emphasis on it throughout the league.”
You guys work so hard in practice, and we see it especially during training camp and like the off-season program. Why do you think that a lot of the coaching points just really haven’t taken this year to this team?
“In regard to?”
Between penalties, turnovers, assignments and stuff like that.
“I mean, that’s a pretty vague question. I don’t know. I can answer that in a million different ways. I don’t really know what to say to that.”
Did Dustin identify some small mechanical error, or did he just find a good swing thought? And I know you don’t have to like say what it is, but did he find something that he now can consistently step up there and do correctly?
“Yeah, I think he’s always said that he hasn’t had any like mental lapses or anything like that. He feels confident and I think that you saw it last week in the practice reps that he does feel confident when he’s out there, and I think that there’s just a few things. Look, things happen throughout the season, throughout your career that you may not be in as good of a rhythm as you have been at other times, and you just try to figure it out and get it fixed. Whether it’s you’re not hitting your free throws or whatever it may be like — I feel like for a kicker, there’s a lot of things that go into a kick. I was talking with someone, I can’t remember who it was, but there’s a lot of things that factor into a kick. It’s not just the kick. There’s the weather, there’s the surface, there’s the snap, the hold. There are so many things that factor into a kick. And a lot of times it’s not just the kicker or it’s not just the kick, but there are so many different variables that factor into any kick. So, I think for him specifically, he’s trying to identify what he can do to make it better.”
One obvious change has been Rex (Sunahara), but is everything going fine with Rex as your holder?
“Yeah, we’ve done a good job with our operation. I think Dustin has identified what he feels needs to be corrected.”
Assuming it’s not dealing with a mental issue in terms of the kicking. Like, is it easier to fix if something’s going wrong then? Is that like the hardest thing to fix if it is a mental problem?
“I don’t know that firsthand, but I would say that you’re probably better off to have someone that doesn’t have a mental issue as far as like overthinking the process and make it more physical. I feel like that would be easier to correct. But that would be just me, I would think.”
I know it’s clarified, when we asked you about you correcting technique for Dustin Hopkins or any kicker. Phil Dawson one time said teams don’t have a kicking coach. Have you ever been around anyone who is just specifically a kicking coach?
“Yeah, there’s kicking coaches out there. I’m not a kicking coach, but I understand, I would say, the fundamentals and basics of kicking. So, when we turn on the film, we can identify what things need to be corrected relative to his technique, and his foot placement, etcetera. So, yeah, there’s a bunch of kicking coaches out there.”