Assistant Head Coach/Special Teams Coordinator Bubba Ventrone (9.26.24)
Bubba, what have you seen out of the Raiders’ kicker and punter? I mean, they’ve been doing it for a while. How good are they?
“Yeah, both very talented, (Daniel) Carlson and (AJ) Cole. Carlson has range, he’s very accurate. He’s been doing it at a high level for a number of years now out in Vegas. And Cole is a game changer. He can truly flip the field, he’s very good directionally, he’s got a strong leg, controls the ball well. Really, really both good players that they have.”
Were you disappointed to see that missed 53-yard field goal?
“Yeah, Tony (Grossi) jinxed us. Tony jinxed us. That’s no good. Yeah, we got to find a way to connect on that. He didn’t hit a terrible ball on that, so we’ll try to get that corrected this week.”
Bubba, you guys were able to create a turnover right off the bat causing the fumble. Just how much do you guys work on that specific skill during practice when you’re working kickoff?
“Yeah, so with the kickoff play, it’s always relative to who you’re going against. Obviously, your personnel and the gameplan changes as the game goes along. There are times where you’re looking to generate a return and force a return, and there’s other times where you’re not. In that instance, in that specific game, we wanted to force early. That’s not going to be the case every week, but just obviously being able to get to the ball and priority on putting a hat to the ball when we can and swarming to the football. So, I think the entire unit did a good job on number one, getting to the returner and then finding a way to get the ball out and get it back. Put our offense in a good spot.”
Every game you’ve been consistent. Your first kickoff, you choose to defend the play rather than kick it out of the endzone. Is that just to see what they’re doing?
“It’s week to week. It really is. It’s week to week.”
(James) Proche, just him as a punt returner, it seemed to me like that’s one of the most difficult jobs to catch the ball and knowing you’re going to get creamed. So, what makes him so good at what he does?
“Yeah, I would say James is very instinctive. He tracks and judges the ball extremely well. He’s got good hands, and I think he just understands, and he does a really good job of preparing. He studies punters and obviously tracks the ball well in the air and he’s done a good job. He’s been a solid player for us and made a nice play at the end of the game there in the plus-50 situation to get the block, to save a bunch of yards and put our offense in a better spot than we would have been had he not made that block on the gunner.”
How unfortunate to lose Wyatt (Teller) in a situation like that and just the state of flux of the lineman. How is that impacting you?
“Yeah, so, I mean, he was a great player for me. Obviously, he was on that unit. We’ll replace him in some way and get that field goal unit back up and rolling. But no, Wyatt; great teammate. Tough kid, tough guy.”
Did Dawand (Jones) just get like, lose his footing on that? It looked like he kind of got pushed back and fell into Wyatt.
“Yeah, the footwork wasn’t to our standards. We’ll have to clean that up.”
How have you seen the coverage units kind of develop over these first few games as you’re getting used to the kickoff rules and how things are kind of going week to week?
“Yeah, so in both punt and kickoff or just kickoff? Yeah, I think after that first game, after the first week, we felt like we needed to improve in some areas, and I feel like we’ve addressed those and we’re going to continue to improve. And it really comes down to the fundamentals of the play; understanding your leverage, understanding how you’re being blocked, recognizing their leverage and what they’re trying to do in their scheme. So, always going to just keep coaching both of those units up that way.”
I was watching the Monday Nighter, the (Cincinnati) Bengals tried that onside kick. What do you think of this new — I mean, it was tough before, but now the new onside kick rule, what do you think of that?
“Well, it actually it’s really the same because you declare for it, and then it goes back to how it was. It goes back to the previous rules. I’m trying to remember what they did on that kick. I think they hit like the high hopper. Yeah, they hit the high hopper on that. Yeah, I always say if you’re kicking an onside kick, you didn’t do enough earlier in the game to put yourself in the spot to not kick an onside kick. So, I’m not in favor of really changing that play. I don’t think that you should have a chance to just get back in the game after you didn’t do enough earlier in the game to do so.”
How many onside kicks are there? Varieties?
“Varieties. Well, I will say this. Last week we inducted into the (Cleveland Browns) Legends, Phil Dawson. When we would line up on our onside kick unit when Phil was here and Brad Seely was the coordinator, we called it the ‘Dawson Six Pack.’ He had six onside kicks that he would hit, and he would give a signal and he would make the call on the field and he’d be able to place the ball or hit a specific type of ball to a certain area. And that’s how we played it. And so, it was really like a check with me. I think we actually had, no, we did, we had shirts made that said the ‘Dawson Six Pack’ on them.”
Where you here when he recovered his own? It’s got to be the perfect onside kick.
“I’m not sure. We probably hit too many onside kicks back then. I can’t remember that one specifically.”
Tre Tucker for them, their punt return, what do you see when you watch him on film?
“Speed, fast. This guy can get to the edge and he can run. Last year, I want to say the analytics showed on the tracking data this guy was the second fastest person in the league with the ball in his hands. I think it came out to a conversion, like, he ran like a 4.24 with the ball in his hand. So, that’s rolling. And he’s a guy that we’re definitely going to have to be ready for and to have good leverage against.”
Who was first?
“I don’t know that. I don’t know that.”
Tyreek Hill?
“If I had to guess, I would probably say him, yeah.”
Given Myles Garrett’s injuries, do you have to sacrifice him special teams or can you still use him still?
“No, I think we’ll still be able to use him in his roles. I think that — and like I said, all of our units are week-to-week and how we see the best matchup. So, he’s been a great team player for us. Always excited about his role.”
I forget which lineman it was but said after the game was talking about with all the injuries to the O-line, he really did juggle stuff on whether field goal or extra point and blocking it. So how did you wind up getting that figured out? Just how big of a transition was it with all those bodies missing?
“Yeah, so I think that’s why it’s important when you’re going through phase one, phase two, OTAs, all the way through training camp. You’re building on roster depth at those positions in the event that you were ever to get into a spot where you’re light on numbers. You want to be able to have as many guys train in those areas that way if something were to happen like that, it’s like, ‘Boom, this guy, you got to go in.’ You’ve done this technique probably not nearly as much as the other guy, but at least you have somebody that’s somewhat familiar with the technique and being in there in that spot.”
Do you want to call up D-line? D-linemen instead of O-linemen?
“We didn’t have to attempt a kick after that. But we’ve played defensive lineman on that unit before. Dalvin (Tomlinson) played on that unit last year for us at times. And obviously we have other young players that are available.”
It seems like Mike Ford is just always the first guy down there on punts. What makes him so good at that and how happy are you that you guys were able to get him back?
“Yeah, Mike does a great job. First off, he embraces the kicking game and his role. He takes pride in it. He prepares extremely well, and he plays with high, high, high effort and finish. So, he’s been a joy to have on our unit the last two years.”
Along those lines with Tony (Brown) and forcing that fumble on the first play, just what do you think of the way he used his shoulder and made that play?
“Yeah, I mean, I don’t know if he actually — I feel like sometimes when the play’s happening that fast, I don’t know if he actually meant to use his shoulder to get the ball out. Maybe he did. But it’s a bang-bang play. We were fortunate to get it out. He did a great job last week as well.”