Assistant head coach/special teams coordinator Bubba Ventrone (10.19.23)
Do you think Denzel (Ward) affected that kick?
“Yeah, he had good rushes throughout the entire game. And, you know, that’s a tough kick. It’s a pressure situation with a loud audience. And he got a good jump on the ball, so it could have affected it.”
Dustin (Hopkins), once again – those 50 plus that he’s getting, now 4-4, what’s going on with that? And can you just talk about how he performed?
“He’s just been very consistent on a day-to-day basis with his routine and specifically to the operation with Corey (Bojorquez) and Charley (Hughlett). So I think that has carried over into the game results. So he’s a true professional. He works at his craft. He understands the intricacies of the position. He’s a veteran, and he’s done a really good job for our team.”
What’s the data tell you on running out of the end zone and wanting to get it past the 25?
“I haven’t looked at the data as of late, but if you feel confident in your players, then that’ll help you make the decision on what to do.”
What did you get out of (Jaelon) Darden? Is he still in that role?
“I thought he did a good job. I thought he did a nice job in the game. He caught the one ball on the sideline, did a nice job getting vertical. I thought the run style was what we’re looking for, so I thought in the game, I felt like his judgment was pretty solid. He caught the ball clean, protected it well.”
Will he stay there?
“I think it’s definitely an option now. I mean, that’ll be made at the end of the week. You only have so many elevations on a player, so we’ll have those other guys ready. Donovan (Peoples-Jones) will be ready to go.
Thoughts on Dustin being named AFC Special Teams Player of the Week? Did you get to talk to him at all?
“Yeah, it was well deserved. I thought it was obviously a competitive game, that every point mattered and obviously hit the big kick on the possession prior to them getting the ball, whatever it was, to bring us within the ability to go ahead with the field goal. So critical in the game to have every point that we earned.”
Jim (Schwartz) talked about, too, how he celebrates, the defense, celebrates after every sack, whatever the case may be, any big play. Do you guys do anything on the special teams to that nature as well? Did you guys do anything for Dustin for winning that honor?
“I would say that – a thing that I would say is pretty unique about our team. And Anthony Walker pointed out to me the other day is, it’s a very and I don’t know how it’s been here in the past or really, every team is different, but I would say that this team is very selfless. And you can see whenever the offense makes a play, the defense goes crazy. When the defense makes a play, the offensive players are going nuts. When we hit that punt before half, the sideline goes pretty bananas because now they don’t have an opportunity to get into field goal range, to kick a field goal. So I think know the culture that Kevin (Stefanski) and AB (Andrew Berry) have created with bringing in these players, especially this year, specifically, from what I can see, is that there’s a unique bond with our team right now. And I feel like everyone’s playing together and trying to do as best job as playing complementary football in all three phases of the game.”
On Sunday, it kept starting to rain and stopping. What impact did that have on the day that Dustin Hopkins had?
“So I think early in the year we had the rain game against Cincinnati, and I think being able to have that experience in game with the ball handling, the snap operation, that helps to have had some of that earlier in the year. I don’t think it played too much of a factor in this past game. They didn’t really express any of that to me. But look, whatever the conditions are, we’re ready to play in them and we’re expecting the roof to be open Indy this week.”
Corey had the long punt before the half and then I think he had four inside the 20 in that game. How important was he to what you guys did?
“Yeah, Corey did a nice job. The ball before half completely flipped the field. I think we end up getting a penalty on that rep too, from what I remember, I think (George) Odum held Rodney McLeod on that. But yeah, I mean, to be able to just take them out of even remotely close to having an impact to try to get points on the board before halftime was huge.’
What do you think about going back to the Colts?
“I’m excited. I’m excited for another opportunity, man. I’m excited for an opportunity to get another win.”
Not beside a former team for the last four years?
“I would say there’s a decent amount of personnel changes. I had a great time when I was in Indianapolis and was able to work with a lot of really good special teams units. Went to the playoffs a handful of times. Extremely grateful to Frank Reich for the opportunity to be the coordinator there in my time and to the ownership, Chris Ballard, Carlie (Iray-Odom), Mr. (Jim) Irsay. I really enjoyed my time there and now I’m excited for my time here.”
Dustin said after the game that kicking towards the downtown side, he noticed it was a little bit windier. Did you guys have to talk about that at all? How did it affect that kick, especially since it put you guys ahead?
“Yeah, so we talked through that in pregame. We always get like the distance, the yard lines go in each direction depending on what the wind variations are and things like that. Specifically on the first kick where he missed the kick, I just asked him, ‘how did that feel?’ He said, ‘I got good contact, but it wasn’t the line that I wanted.’ So I think he obviously made the corrections as the game went along and was able to adjust to whatever the wind was doing. So, yeah, I thought he handled it pretty well.”
Denzel just coming out of the gate, just how hard is it for that guy to block a kick? It looks like he’s going as fast as anybody. He doesn’t get there. So what’s his job or what has to happen for him to affect a kick like that?
“Yeah, it starts with your get off. He’s got extremely good instincts and he’s fast and he bends well. So I think that those are all the, I would say the traits that you want in a position player like that for that spot. And he’s a good football player. He’s got good acceleration and burst. He ran, like, 4.3. So, I mean, obviously, his start is going to be something that has to enable him to be able to get there.”
What impact does the roof open have on that? Is it a major impact? Because you said you expect the roof to be open.
“Yeah, they like to open it for whatever reason, even if it’s like 50 or 60 degrees. I know that the players don’t love it, and I don’t think the fans do either, but there’s not a big impact in it. The wind pattern – we play in Cleveland, we have wind here. Even if the windows open there, it’s not windy. It really doesn’t have an impact, but we’re anticipating it will be open. And it’ll probably be colder.”
To follow up on Scott’s question with Denzel, I mean, I know he talked about he was mad that he wasn’t able to block it. So just he’s so obviously competitive on the defensive side, which everyone knows, but just how much of that competitiveness does he bring when he’s in there on those units for you?
“And I would say this in speaking about Denzel and his role for us on that unit and with other starters, and I talked about this early in the season. We have a lot of starters that are playing one unit, two units, field goal, whatever it may be, and everyone’s embracing Those roles, guys like whether it’s Dalvin Tomlinson playing on our field goal unit last week. I don’t know if anyone noticed that, but he did an incredible job. He played our guard last week. We had a couple guys get nicked up, so things like that. Back to the selfless thing, it’s doing whatever it takes to win the game. Right? And that’s what football is, it’s a team sport. Everyone has to be willing to do whatever it takes to win and fortunately, our team has bought into that.”
What do you think of their kicker? Made five 50-yarders in that game against the Ravens.
“Yeah, Matt’s (Gay) a good kicker. Not sure if a lot of people know this, we had Matt on practice squad in 2020, so he was drafted in ’19, I want to say to Tampa. So he gets cut from Tampa. And this kid was talented, I had a high grade on him coming out. He’s a field kicker and for whatever reason didn’t stick in Tampa, so we ended up signing him to the practice squad. And you could see that he was going to be the guy. Everyone in the building knew that was a dude and that we should have pulled the trigger and kept that guy and they would have saved themselves a lot of money. But everyone knew. I mean, everyone knew. And he got poached late in the season by the Rams and he’s done a really good job for himself. I felt like coming to Indy enabled him to kind of reset, get back to the basics, and he found his path. I’m never going to overcoach a specialist and kind of put them in their comfort zone, and I think I do a good job of managing those guys to be able to have let them do what they want to do to a degree and not be too dictatorship amongst it, because some guys can be like that. And I really do think it enabled him to get back on track and credit to him for having a great career.”
In the home stadium do you know which end you want in the fourth quarter? Can it change?
“In Indy’s stadium? Oh, in Cleveland. It changes. It definitely changes. There’s times where we’ll want to finish one way or another. It’s happened already this season, so, yeah, I always communicate with the specialist in pregame, and then I’ll communicate that to Kevin before we go out.”
Have you ever seen a penalty get reversed like it did last Sunday?
“So, I knew that it wasn’t on us. I knew that it wasn’t on us, and I knew that something got mixed up in the communication with the officials. Look, they have a hard job. They definitely have a hard job. And fortunately, they got it right and they made it right and they admitted that they had made a mistake. Fortunately for us, they got it right. And not to say that- it was good that they got it right, because honestly, that’s a big difference on that play. I mean, we end up going from I want to say the ball started like the 28 maybe and we got it to 38 and we would have been like inside the 20, whatever it was, something like that. So it was definitely a big thing for us to get that right.”
When you came here from Indy, what did you see the difference in their distance on a field goal? Was it the same or were they able to maybe go five yards more in the dome than on a traditional outfield?
“Yeah, I think typically when you’re playing with ideal conditions inside in a dome that you’re going to be able to get more distance on the ball unless you had wind at your back. So, yeah, I’d say typically inside you can hit for further distances.”
I want to ask you about, going back to Matt real quick. You know, drafted guy. You guys had a guy like that here. Dustin was a guy that got drafted and didn’t stick with his original team. Why do you think it’s hard for drafted kickers sometimes to just stick with their original team?
“I don’t know. I think that in football, just in every facet, every position, there’s a transition from college to pro. Right? And there’s more pressure in the NFL. As far as a rush, you’re going with the rush. You’re dealing with a different operation. The balls are different. Sometimes it does take time with younger players. I mean, you can see, for example, Daniel Carlson gets drafted to Minnesota, has a few missed kicks early in his career and they move on. And now he was like a Pro-Bowl kicker in Vegas and he’s super talented. Same with Matt Gay. There’s position players that are drafted high that don’t pan out too. So it’s every position. You would hope that if you’re drafting a kicker that they are going to develop.”
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