Assistant Head Coach/Special Teams Coordinator Bubba Ventrone (9.12.24)
Bubba, when you watch some kickoffs from around the league, how much variety was there? What was surprising at all to you?
“Yeah, there was definitely more scheme than there was in the preseason. There was a good amount of, I would say, explosive returns that happened in the league. There was a touchdown, obviously, in the Arizona game that was really more the result of a few missed tackles rather than the scheme. But, yeah, I thought there was definitely some excitement on the play.”
On the punt return, when you watch that back, what happened on that play?
“Geez, there’s a lot of bad football in that play that, you know, we were not obviously up to our standards, you know. So, gotta have a better punt with location and hang time. The leverage needs to be better. The effort was poor and it was addressed, and we will move forward and keep coaching it up.”
So with adding Kadarius Toney, just how excited are you to maybe see how he fits on punt returns? I know he hasn’t really done a lot of kick return in his career, but obviously, with the new rules, is he a possible fit?
“Yeah, he’s definitely a playmaker, and we’re going to keep seeing what he can do. He’s had some punt return experience in his career and he’s good with the ball in his hand. So, we’ll keep working with him and he’s obviously an option on the practice squad right now.
Well, it’s obvious that every phase of the team had a bad day Sunday…
“Yeah.”
Including special teams, so, do you think it’s fair to say that not playing in preseason had something to do with the overall team performance?
“No, I think that… I think overall, our urgency as a team and our effort needs to be better. Overall, I just think that, you know, week one, there’s a lot of unknowns going into week one. You know, the continuity within the group. You really don’t know your football team until after, really, the first month of the season. So I think we’re still trying to figure out who we are and make the corrections from this past game, not only in the kicking game, but on offense and defense, and then just try to apply it to this upcoming week. And obviously, a tough opponent at Jacksonville, it’s a hard place to play.”
What was it that you liked most about (Jaelon) Darden that kind of made him the guy you wanted back there?
“Yeah, we had some production on the punt return unit. I thought he did a good job of getting the ball downhill, made some yards, set up our offense in the first quarter with the explosive return to our sidelines. So that was a positive in the game. I thought that he did a solid job overall.”
What happened in that one kick, Bubba, it ended up on the 20 instead of the 30? You guys like… It landed in a landing area, then rolled out of bounds.
“Yeah, the ball came off — and credit to (Brandon) Aubrey, he’s a very talented kicker. We knew that we were going to have some of those types of balls to field. It looked like it started out going to the left, tailed back to the right. So didn’t get a great jump on the ball. And I think that he felt that it was going to be too risky to try to field it.”
Was it a perfect kick?
“I don’t…No, I don’t think it’s the perfect kick. I think that it was a very good kick, yeah.”
When you have Dustin (Hopkins) kick into the end zone quite a bit there… Were you happy just to take that rather than try to defend the return?
“I’ve talked about this a lot. I feel like every kick is relative to the situation in the game, who you’re going against, your personnel, all that stuff.”
So what would be a perfect kick? One that allows you to tackle a guy at the 10 or something?
“No, I think that… Yeah, I understand what you’re saying. Like, perfect kick, meaning like hitting the landing zone and yeah.”
Losing Mohamoud (Diabate) Tony (Fields) to the IR (injury reserve), how big of a hit is that to your special teams unit? And how are you addressing that this week and moving forward?
“Yeah, we have options on the roster, we have options on the practice squad. We obviously acquired Khaleke (Hudson) from New Orleans, so we have options. It’s unfortunate that those guys were injured, but Mohamoud’s injury happened in the game. Obviously, he tried playing through it, but it is what it is. It’s next man up and we’re trying to just keep improving on those units.”
Bubba, did you think they were going to try that 71 yarder at the end of the half?
“I did. Yeah, I did. We had Denzel (Ward) back there in the event that the ball would fall short, we’d be able to return it. And they obviously decided against it. It was, you know, he hit a monster ball prior to that, and the wind was coming at us from that end. I mean, we were questioning whether we were going to actually attempt our field goal on that 50 plus yarder.”
It’s interesting that you put Denzel back there, who does no returns at all. So, what’s the choice of Denzel?
“Well, he’s… To me, he’s on our field goal block unit. So you don’t have to make a substitution there and he’s got elite speed. And he’s ran with the ball in the past, in his history. So, he’s an explosive player.”
What do you think the mindset, the response to that kind of beat down has been as you move through the meetings and the practices this week? What are you seeing?
“Yeah, I would say this, you know, week one, I feel like a lot of times people can overreact. Now I will say this, we did not play well as a football team at all. Like, that is not our standard. That’s not the head coach’s standard, (Jim) Schwartz, anybody. We hold our team to a high standard, and we know that we have to play a lot better in every phase. I think we need to compete harder; we need to play harder. We need to play with better effort across the board. And a lot cleaner, we had a lot of penalties in the game as a team. You win as a team; you lose as a team. And we definitely… that was definitely a team loss and we have moved on, and we are ready to roll.”
Bubba, like you said you guys were considering if Dustin was going to kick that 51-yarder. So, what did you see from him just coming out, not playing in preseason and coming out and hitting that field goal?
“Yeah, I thought he had a good week leading up to it. He had a good pregame. We felt good about him in the game and those guys operated well.”
When the time ran out before they made that 66-yard kick. Obviously, (Mike) McCarthy had three timeouts, he could have used them, but he thought they had to reset the clock. What’s your understanding of what went on there?
“At the end of the first half?”
Yes, when they kicked the 66-yarder but they called delay of game.
“Right.”
McCarthy was unaware the play clock was not reset or something?
“I’m not sure what happened on that.”