Assistant Head Coach/Special Teams Coordinator Bubba Ventrone (12.12.24)
Coach (Kevin Stefanski) said that he has full confidence that Dustin’s (Hopkins) going to kind of work his way through this. I’m sure you feel the same way. Anything in particular you guys are working with him on this week?
“No, I think, I mean, like I’ve said, we haven’t had the results that we want with the kicks. I think that he’s just trying to work through it with going back and evaluating really his technique and why we’re not getting the results where we’d like to.”
I saw you all brought in Riley (Patterson). How do you determine who’s going to kick Sunday?
“We’re just kind of working it out, seeing how it goes throughout the week and make a decision on what we feel like we need to do.”
Dustin talked about being in a good place mentally, but does part of you wonder if taking a week off might help him kind of kick start getting back to where he was?
“Yeah, we’ve talked about a few different things and like I said, we’re just going to try to see how it goes today. Both of them will kick today and tomorrow and then make a determination on how we’re going to go for this week.”
The fact that Riley (Patterson) was here last year, and I assume it’s enticing to getting him back in here?
“Yeah, I think there’s some familiarity with him. Ironically, we have a different snapper and holder from whenever he was here last year. So, yeah, he’s a good kicker and he’s a hard worker.”
Riley talked about just the relationship he had had with Dustin a year ago. Does that help? Because it’s always, I’m sure, a difficult situation when somebody comes in and challenges you. Did that help kind of smooth things out?
“Yeah, I think so. I mean, like Kevin (Stefanski) said it, I mean, Dustin’s our kicker. So, if we feel like we need to sit Dustin for a week, we can do that. That’s not necessarily what’s going to happen. We’re going to see how the week goes.”
Can you talk about the release of Kadarius (Toney)? Obviously don’t have Kadarius or Jaelon Darden here. Who do you expect to be returning punts for you guys?
“I mean, I would anticipate it’s going to be James (Proche) and Elijah (Moore). Those are the two guys that we have available right now.”
What do you think about Bill (Belichick) going to (North) Carolina?
“I know my son is going to be wherever Steve Belichick’s coaching. So, if Steve Belichick’s the head coach in North Carolina at some point, my son will be going there.”
How old is your son?
“He turns 11 next week. It’s not far away.”
Why do you say that though?
“Well, I feel like Bill gave me my foundation in football. I learned so much as a player and as a coach, and there’s no better place that I would want my son to go to school than to play and learn football under the Belichicks.”
Did you think college was possible for him? Did you have a sense that he might go back there?
“For Bill? Probably not. But honestly, after I had listened to his interview with (Pat) McAfee and how he sees building – that really, he’s seeing it like an organization to a degree because of how the college football operation is running right now. And after hearing him talk, I could understand why he’s going back or why he’s going to college.”
What about the NIL component of college now and how you think he might handle that sort of stuff?
“Listen, Coach Belichick is a freak at what he does. He’s ridiculous. And Mike Lombardi will do a really good job, too. Those guys work well together, and it’ll be fun to watch.”
When you came to Belichick as a player, were you surprised how much interest he had in special teams?
“No, but, I mean, he originally started as a special teams coach. He understands the impact that the kicking game has to set up your offense, to set up your defense, and ultimately a lot of those plays impact the game because they’re scoring plays. So no, and he always stressed the importance of, and it reflected with how we fielded our roster and the ways we would be able to get extra guys to the game to be able to contribute in the kicking game. Just for example, some things that stand out to me were we had Patrick Chung, who could play nickel and safety, so we were able to bring another special teams body to the game because Pat could do both. So, there’s always ways that you’re able to manufacture the roster to be able to have an extra teams guy at the game.”
You wouldn’t have played in the NFL if not for special teams, correct?
“I would not have made a roster, no. I played a little bit of defense when I was here my first two years. And I ultimately made it because I was a practice squad player my rookie year and I played. I did everything. I played offense, defense, and then in my third year, they moved me to receiver. I played receiver for two years in New England.”
Jimmy (Haslam) has said that he’s been kind of perplexed with how this season has gone. Is that a good definition or feeling about this season as a whole?
“Probably. I mean, look, here’s the thing, no one’s happy with how our season has turned out. We’re hoping that in the next four weeks we can build some momentum going into next year. I will say this, our players are playing hard. The coaches are working hard to be able to try to gain some momentum, gain some traction heading into the off season. I think that obviously we haven’t had the win results like we wanted. You go to the playoffs last year and you come back this year and we’ve only had three wins to this point and obviously it’s disappointing.”
What’d you guys do so well on that long Jerome (Ford) kick return? I mean, I know you’ve been looking for that all year, that kind of burst.
“Yeah, I think it was an emphasis post bye week that we wanted to just put more time and effort into that. I think the guys are getting more comfortable with the blocking techniques. We did a good job securing some blocks on that. Jerome made a nice run. Hopefully we can have more production in the next four weeks.”
When you look at the Chiefs’ special teams units, what kind of stands out as areas for you guys to focus on?
“Dave Toub has done a really nice job in his career. One of the best guys in the league. He’s always specialized in the return game, so they do a good job in the return game. A bunch of guys have done it well. The kid that they played last week is a dynamic player, (Nikko) Remigio did a nice job, so we’ll look to play good leverage versus him and tackle well.”
There’s a chance, don’t know yet, but (Harrison) Butker could be back for them. How much does that change the dynamics of their field goal unit, what they can do?
“Yeah, he’s a super talented kicker. Very talented kicker, very accurate, has distance and range. He has a stronger leg than Matthew Wright, who’s also an accurate kicker, just can’t hit for as far of distances as (Harrison) Butker can. So, I think that would probably be the biggest impact that it would have relative to the field goal distance and range that they would have in a game.”
Is Justin Reid just kind of barely getting into the kicking zone or does he boot it into the end zone?
“He’s got a strong leg. He’s put the ball in the end zone a number of times. Butker got hurt, I think it was two years ago versus Arizona (Cardinals), he hurt his ankle, and Justin Reid came in and finished that game off kicking. He kicked off for them last week and then with him kicking off, it provides them another coverage player that can tackle.”
Did it look, on their kickoffs, like it made an impact?
“Yeah, I thought he did a good job, yeah.”
I know you keep an eye on things around the league. There was an unusual play at the end of the (Cincinnati) Bengals – (Dallas) Cowboys game the other night, punt blocked and then tried to recover. When something like that happens, do you kind of review things?
“Yeah, ironically, I showed a clip probably about a month ago of a very similar clip, and ironically, it was Justin Reid’s brother, Eric Reid. So, we were playing in San Francisco in 2013 we were playing at home versus Carolina (Panthers), and he was playing wing, and a similar thing happened where he gave up a block, the ball travels across the line of scrimmage, Carolina’s guy touched the ball, and then Eric Reid recovered the ball, and now we had the ball first-and-10. Obviously, you give up or you get a blocked punt, and it travels past the line of scrimmage, it’s unfortunate for Dallas because they made a great play there and you can’t account for the ball going across the line of scrimmage and you can’t account for somebody trying to field it and then it goes the other way. But it was a good play by Dallas, and the guy from Cincinnati was just in the right spot at the right time to get on the recovery.”
What do you tell your guys when the punt’s blocked like that?
“So once the ball travels across the line of scrimmage, it’s like it was just a regular punt. So just try to get away. We call it ‘Peter, Peter,’ and you just try to vacate the area as fast as you can. Whoever’s in the area and sees the ball — normally, if it’s a short ball and the returner sees the ball being short, we tell our guys to attack the ball and give a visual so that everyone around the area can see to get away. That ball didn’t travel too far down the field, so it was tough. But in that case, we’re just telling our guys, once the ball crossed the line of scrimmage, it’s like it was not blocked at all.’
Do you remember the Leon Lett growing up?
“So I do remember the Leon Lett. They blocked the field goal, right? And he goes to get on it. Wasn’t that a Thanksgiving Day game and they had the roof open, and it snowed, right? Yeah, I do remember that.”
(Bernie) Kosar was on the Dallas team.
“Oh, is that right?”