Assistant Head Coach/Special Teams Coordinator Bubba Ventrone (1.1.25)
What have you made of Corey’s (Bojorquez) season? Obviously, he’s been asked to punt a lot just given the circumstances of the offense this year. I think he finished top 10 in fan voting amongst the punters. What have you thought of his season?
“I think Corey’s had a good year. I think that he’s improved in a number of areas. I think his directional placement has definitely improved. I think he’s shown that he’s been able to have much better control than he had last year in the plus-50. He’s done a good job with us being able to create field position for our defense in those types of situations.”
Obviously, it’s a byproduct of the work he’s put in. Was there anything else he specifically changed during the offseason coming into this season?
“No, that was a big, I would say, point of emphasis for us heading into last offseason. I felt like we missed on some opportunities last year in those areas of the field and I think he did a good job. He really applied himself and did a good job with the practice reps. I would say we hit more of those plus-50 balls throughout the spring, training camp and obviously into the season.”
Who are you going to use on kick returns? It looks like (Jerome) Ford and Pierre Strong will be out.
“You’ll have to watch the game on Saturday to see. We have a lot of options.”
Are you expecting to not have either of those guys?
“We’ll see. We’ll see what happens.”
Similarly, what do you make of Dustin’s (Hopkins) season? Do you just chalk it up to a tough year and just how do you think he has handled the difficulty that he’s had to deal with?
“Yeah, I think he’s handled it, I would say, in a professional manner. I think that he’s doing everything he can to get it right. Has hit the ball well the last few weeks, and obviously we had one opportunity last week that he converted on, which was good. But, have a lot of confidence in him moving forward in being our kicker. So, I think that obviously it’s been an inconsistent season for him.”
With Mike Vrabel leaving now, how valuable was it to have him in the building all year?
“We talked for a while the other day. I’m going to really miss him. Obviously, he was like a big brother to me whenever I was a young player in New England. And then obviously being able to cross paths again here. It was great to have him around. I obviously have a ton of respect for him. He’s an incredible football mind. Whoever ends up hiring that guy is getting an incredible person, former player, and hell of a coach. So, I love Mike and I’ll miss him.”
Overall, how would you compare your special teams this year to last year?
“Every season’s different. The personnel you have is different in most seasons. This was a younger group than we had last year. And obviously the new kickoff-kickoff return play throws a completely different wrinkle into the results you’re going to see. And I would say this, overall, it wasn’t up to my standard. The units that I’ve coached, we haven’t played to the level that I expect our units to play at. So, we got to do a better job of coaching and executing.”
You mentioned that kickoff rule. Do you think it sticks and what tweaks could we see next year?
“Yeah, I think it’ll stick. I think it’ll stick. I think it’s brought some excitement. There’s definitely been a higher return rate. I don’t know exactly what the numbers are right off the top, but I think that it’ll stick. I think that there will definitely be some tweaks. I could see potentially moving the touchback even further up the field to the 35. That would generate more returns, and I could even see them potentially moving the ball back to the 30-yard line to eliminate the junk ball type kicks. Because I think the play is definitely cleaner when the ball is in the air and not on the ground. And if you want to see returns, then you’re not incentivizing putting the ball on the ground. And me personally, I don’t like the rule that, I’ll definitely say this on the record, I do not like the role of the ball hitting the ground and rolling through the endzone and a touchback going to the 20-yard line. To me that doesn’t incentivize returns. That incentivizes, like, valuing a guy that can play soccer. So, to me if you want returns, then kick the ball in the air and have the guys force the returns.”
When you do have a situation when you’re punting more kind of backed up in your own territory or in the end zone, is it like intuitively that you’d expect a lesser hang time on those kicks just because you’re trying to flip the field? Or is that a different situation than obviously like when you’re plus-50 and you’re trying to…
“Yeah, it depends on the area of the field, how far backed up you are. And it depends on the type of returner you’re going against, also. That’s going to factor in the type of ball that we’re going to hit. There are often times where if you’re backed up inside like your own five-yard line, you’re going to have to operate a little bit faster because there’s not as much — you typically align like 14-and-a-half to 15 yards, snap to the punter, the ball’s on the two-yard line, you don’t have as much space. You have to work faster and you’re probably not going to hit as good of a ball when you’re backed up like that and having to operate that much faster.”
I mean, across the board throughout the league this year it just seemed like there were more blocked kick attempts. I mean you guys obviously had the one at Philly. Just what do you think that is with that trend this year?
“You know what, I’m not sure. I would say that there’s definitely — I think some of the schemes have been pretty, I would say, executed well. Some teams have gotten away with some, I would say, not dirty-type play, but there’s been some things where you see teams, I don’t know if you’ve seen this on the field goal block unit, but teams are like grabbing offensive lineman’s arms and like pulling them out. And when you do that, it creates space and a gap. Sometimes the officials see it, a lot of times they don’t. I know a number of teams have been able to come up with blocks as a result of those plays. I know New Orleans has done it and we warned the officials before we played them about that, and a lot of other teams have done it as well. We have not done it.”
It seems like Justin Tucker has gotten himself back on track and does that maybe inform what could happen with Dustin?
“Yeah, I hit on that I want to say last week or maybe the week before that it’s, to me, that’s a good thing for any kicker that has had some struggles is to see — obviously he’s the best in the game in my opinion right now, Justin Tucker, as like a kicker. And to obviously have had a little bit of a struggle mid-season and then being able to self-correct and apply it and hit the ball well. He’s one of the best of all time. And yeah, I think that it’s a good thing.”
How do you evaluate how Rex (Sunahara) did coming in, just taking over for Charley (Hughlett), and obviously with him being around the team when he was here in the off-season. But how did he do this year?
“Yeah, I thought he did a good job. I think that in that position, it’s hard to come in mid-season when you’re not getting as many reps. Obviously, we had Rex in training camp, so that was beneficial for us to have gotten him reps back then. But being thrown into the mix right away, going against some good teams with good personnel, I think he’s done a good job.”
This is not a knock-on Rex, but how come you guys never went back to Charley Hughlett?
“I mean, he’s got an injury.”
But he said he’s fine.
“I mean, he might be feeling fine, but he might not be fine to play football. There’s a difference.”