Browns special teams dealing with adversity as season kicks off
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Editor's note: Tony Grossi is a Cleveland Browns analyst for TheLandOnDemand.com and 850 ESPN Cleveland. He has covered the Browns since 1984.
Takeaways from Browns practice and interviews …
The NFL season is long and treacherous. The surviving teams are those that overcome inevitable adversity. Of the Browns’ three coordinators, Bubba Ventrone is the one dealing with adversity as the season starts.
Ventrone lost his kicker to ineffectiveness and his return specialist to injury – all in the last week of preseason.
So the Browns head into the real season breaking in their 12th kicker in 11 years – 12 kickers in 11 years – and without a true specialist returning punts or kickoffs.
“Things happen in sports and football, and it's how you bounce back, it's how you get back up off the ground, and how are we going to make it right,” Ventrone said. “So I feel like this is some adversity with our team, and we got to come back and come back fighting.”
The Browns responded to Cade York’s flame-out by trading for Dustin Hopkins, a proven NFL kicker but one with recent injury problems and an iffy leg beyond 50 yards (15 of 30 in his career). Also, in nine previous seasons Hopkins has appeared in exactly one game in his new home stadium. He did not attempt a field goal in that one.
“I didn't actually know that,” Ventrone said.
Hopkins is the Browns’ ninth full-time kicker since Phil Dawson left in free agency in 2013. There have been three others who’ve kicked in a Browns game in that span. None has made it through two complete seasons in a row. Only three have started a second season with the job.
Dustin Hopkins is the 12th kicker for the Browns since Phil Dawson left in free agency in 2013. (Cleveland Browns)
Nevertheless, Ventrone is upbeat about Hopkins, who has had two kicking sessions in Cleveland Browns Stadium since joining the team on August 28.
“He hit the ball well,” Ventrone said. “The thing that works to his advantage, just overall as a specialist, as a kicker, even though he had been in LA the last two years, he's been in Washington the previous [seven]. So he's kicked outside, he's been in the elements. He understands wind patterns and wind conditions. "So that, I think, bodes to his advantage and our advantage as far as acquiring a guy this late in the game. He's a true professional, he really is. He's worked really hard at getting comfortable with [long snapper Charley Hughlett and holder Corey Bojorquez]. So it's been good.”
With return specialist Jakeem Grant going down with a ruptured patellar tendon on his first return in Kansas City in over a year, Ventrone initially will lean on last year’s returners to pick up the slack.
Jerome Ford was sixth in the NFL last year in kickoff return average (24.1 yards) and Donovan Peoples-Jones was one of only three players to return a punt for a touchdown. His 75-yard TD was the team’s longest play and he averaged a solid 12.4 yards.
Defensive priorities
In four preseason games, Jim Schwartz’s defense scored 16 points, had 8 takeaways, registered 12 sacks and held opponents to 23.9 percent third-down conversions. (Washington led the NFL in third-down defense last year at 31.9 percent. The Browns were at 39.5 percent.)
Schwartz said the two statistics that mean the most to him are points allowed and takeaways.
“Third down is very important to us, right? Red zone, very important to us,” he said. “You’ll hear me say the stats that mean the most to me are points allowed and takeaways. Because our job is to keep the points down and give the ball back to the offense. And the way you keep points down is you stop drives. And one of the ways you stop drives is on third down.
“Red zone takes points off the board. You get a red zone stop, you’re potentially taking four points off the board, maybe seven. You turn the ball over, not only do you get the ball back, but generally, you put your offense in good position or you score yourself on defense. You saw that from our guys this [preseason].
“When it’s all said and done, our job is to limit points, and our job is to get the ball back. Anything else is good for you guys to write about, it’s good for fans to talk about. But our job, we’re going to keep our eye on trying to win the game and trying to keep points down and trying to put our offense in good position.”
Coop’s back
Receiver Amari Cooper spent a great deal of training camp pacing his way back from offseason core muscle surgery. In the joint workouts with the Eagles – the peak of camp – Cooper wasn’t happy with where he was; he dropped at least three balls in one practice.
But Cooper made up ground in the last two weeks and benefitted from playing 15 snaps in the preseason finale in Kansas City.
“I feel good. I’m ready to go,” he said.
Cooper played through the injury the last five games, so he was never right with Deshaun Watson on the field. His production dipped by about 50 percent across the board, and it was only that high because of a 105-yard game against Washington, with two of his three catches going for touchdowns.
“Man, what a tough guy he was to stick it out last year for us,” offensive coordinator Alex Van Pelt said. “I'm just thinking about it. You watch the games from early in the year and since we played [the Bengals] here on Halloween, and the guy that was out there compared to the guy that came on the field … [it’s a] tribute to him to fight through and battle for his brothers. "But he looks like he's back to the old Amari right now after the injury.”
Brownie bits
Cornerback Denzel Ward was “limited” again at practice and has not been cleared from concussion protocol ...Schwartz declined to comment on how Ward’s done the past two days. Schwartz also declined to say who is the team’s fourth cornerback – rookie Cameron Mitchell, newly acquired Kahlef Hailassie, Mike Ford or A.J. Green (practice squad) …
Safety Juan Thornhill (calf) and right tackle Jack Conklin (rest) did not practice.
