BUBBA!! Our new assistant head coach and special teams coordinator is in the building.
— Cleveland Browns (@Browns) February 24, 2023
Welcome back to Cleveland! pic.twitter.com/gMoB1qUcGt
Where did it all start in regard to special teams for the Browns?
It started at . . . well, the start.
Their first head coach, Paul Brown, is known as “The Father of Modern Football” for all the innovations he brought to the game. What you’re hearing for the first time is that it also included special teams. While other head coaches at the time were giving only a token effort of their attention to special teams, Brown was working hard to make sure his units were the best in the NFL. And they were.
That kind of thinking stuck long after Brown departed. Despite his having been fired a decade earlier, the Browns were one of the first NFL teams to have an official special teams coach (it would be a while being they were called coordinators). His name was Al Tabor, who was hired in 1972 by head coach Nick Skorich and stayed six seasons, through 1977. And he was an African American, no less, when there were few African Americans coaching in the NFL in any way, shape or form.
It should be pointed out that 1972, Tabor’s first season, was when Don Cockroft’s career really started to take off with a pressure-filled, last-second, game-winning kick, late-season against the Pittsburgh Steelers, coming just minutes after he had missed from that very same spot on the field.
And in 1975, when the Browns started 0-9, they broke through with a 35-23 win over the Cincinnati Bengals. It came after Billy Lefear got the team off to a roaring start by returning the opening kickoff 92 yards to set up a touchdown.
So, right from the beginning, Tabor was making his mark, and he did so throughout his time in Cleveland.
Again, we say all this to demonstrate how special that special teams are, and have been, with the Browns, and for all NFL teams, really. Head coach Kevin Stefanski absolutely has to get this hire right in getting his own difference-maker as a special teams coordinator.
If he does, then the Browns – and in particular Stefanski, in terms of his job security — will be much better off going forward. And if he doesn’t, then they – and he — won’t.
It really is that simple.
Will Bubba Ventrone, a former Browns special teamer and the man who got the job, be able to do the job?
We’ll see.
Yes, we will.
Steve King
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