DawgTalkers.net Forums DawgTalk Pure Football Forum Browns hire new Special Teams Coach

And after this season it was the HC and the ST's coach. The DC knew what was actually going on in the building so he left too.

You left out the part he tried to become head coach first part. That doesn't fit your agenda though!

Could you please translate that into English?

I suppose you couldn't possibly fathom that it was this FO and owner who called him in to be interviewed for the HC position. As they do with all people they interview for coaching positions. All he did was take the interview.

The media in the building said he told his staff if he does not get the head coaching job he is out and not coming back. He wanted the job. The Browns wanted him as DC. I do not dislike the hire they made at coach. Two things can be possible at the same time. I felt Schwartz performance deserved the promotion and am disappointed he did not get the job. That said I think they did hire a football guy that has won and had good offenses everywhere he has been. But to say Schwartz did not want to stay because of the FO is incorrect. He would have stayed with this FO if he would have got the Head Coaching job. He was upset and rightfully so that he did not get the promotion he deserved. He did a great job in Cleveland.

Do you have any quotes to back up those rumors or just basing it on here say alone? "Some guy said" isn't quite enough to state something as a fact. At least not for most people.

Once again I never made a comment about who they hired. Sometimes your imagination runs away with you. I said the coaching staff in terms of the HC and ST's coach paid the price for a GM that gave them a terrible roster and he still has his job. If both the GM and HC had been fired I would have been fine with it. But as it turns out many times, the coaching staff paid the price for a GM's weaknesses.

Just ask the Titans, Vrabel and the Patriots how that worked out for them. I'm not sure why people watch the same movie over and over again and still can't figure out the plot.

I don't disagree with you Andrew Berry should have been fired. I agree.

Why Berry wasn't fired is a matter of conjecture, but my take is he wasn't fired because of our last very good draft and some FA additions he made. Furthermore, he's probably the only one that will be able to maneuver us through our complicated cap situation. It might take a team of nuclear scientists to figure that out.

No, a numbers guy is a numbers guy. There are a lot of them out there. So you're saying he was kept to fix the clusterfudge cap mess he himself created?

Sounds like Haslam thinking.

Reality is, this is the work of Desean Watson's contract. Any good GM can Keep and improve 22 starting O and D players with the obstacles of large contracts. Problem here is, Berry doesn't have the longevity to bring in higher tier 3rd string, special teams specialists, because Watson's deal is eventually going to come into play. They had their shot 2-3 years ago with Watson's contract being pushed down the road. Now, they are setting up the roster to absorb the cost in 2027 so they don't have levity to sign better low end players and it is affecting the special teams lineup. Players signed in 2025-2027 will all be affected by Watson's endgame in 2027. Without a restructure (which I don't think is in play..does anyone want to see him here in 2027??) He is going to count $80.7M against the cap in 2026, then $50.4M against the 2027 cap, while on another teams roster. Unless there is another injury miracle, Watson is going to cost this team a lot of cap space over the next 2 years. Now, they are going to get some insurance relief on that $80.7M in 2026, but I don't think it has been released yet how much that is. We should know in the next 4 weeks or so as we get closer to the official start to the 2026 league year. It SHOULD be around $40M, but I don't know if anyone knows for sure yet.

I have a hard time seeing how our contract/cap issues right now are affecting the portion of the roster that's by-and-large made up of league-minimum salaries and late-round draft contracts. Coverage units, in particular....


I could see the argument if our specialists were letting us down, as those salaries are on the lower side... but they actually bright spots, overall.

I agree Oobs. The days of having 2nd contract special teamers are pretty much over. As you said, it is pretty much guys on rookie deals once you get past the kickers. Those guys can get into 2nd, and even 3rd contracts.

So for example, on punt team, the best special teams coverage units in 2025 were Washington Commanders 4.56yds/return and Indianapolis colts 6.31yds/return, the Browns were the worst in the nfl 12.73 yds/return.

Taking specialists out of the pay equation, Kicker, Punter, Long Snapper. They have roles, but they are minimal... In this case of punt coverage, Bojorquez was only 24th in punt average, so we were low as a punter AND low as a coverage team.
Average pay per special teams player:
$1,561,168 - Commanders
$1,393,707 - Colts
$1,109,901 - Browns

League minimum for 3yrs or less accrued experience in 2025 - $1,100,000

The Browns have been forced to take cheaper inexperienced players at the low end of the roster and it shows. We are talking ALL league minimum players. I don't know that is a true reality, since Berry keeps carrying over cap money, but the cap carryover is part of the plan to eventually pay off Watson's deal.

Regardless, if money is an indicator of talent, Ventrone was working with less talent than at least the top two teams in this special teams category.

In case you were wondering, the Browns were 26th in punt return average at 7.2 yards per return(returner plays a bigger role in this)... top of the league was New England at 17.3 yards per return.

Another one though to gauge the coordinator is special teams penalties.. Browns were second in the league with only 11 special teams penalties(2 pre-snap penalties, all season, tied for 4th best)... this would tell me it had more to do with talent than coordinator.

I don't think that was what he was saying. We really aren't in cap hell like everyone says year over year.. even with Watson's contract. Now, it is eventually going to be starting this year, but no more than any other team with a half way decent QB. Our biggest issue is that QB they signed has only played 19 out of 51 games, and when he was in there he was well below average. His yards per attempt and yards per catch were the 3 worst seasons of his career.

Despite the Watson situation, Berry kept rolling over the highest amount of salary cap of any team in the league the past two seasons. This is because we are eventually going to have to cut Watson post June-1st and we will need it. The thing is, from the time they signed Watson, until that date in 2027, the salary cap will have risen approximately $100M. So the actual cap will have eaten almost half of Watson's contract and injury insurance will get it down to a manageable number. THAT is why Berry still has a job, to go along with this past draft class, his first real draft class of his tenure.

His first year drafting brought us Grant Delpit
His second year brought JOK and Greg Newsome, I know we traded Newsome, but he was a good starter in this league for the 3 years he was here.

Then he didn't have first round pick until last year... and only one second round pick in those 3 years.

We can only hope, last year was a better indicator of his ability. We could be wrong, but we have a small sample size so it's all we have to go on.

Every time the salary cap rises it rises for all teams. As the salary cap has risen so have the price of the player contracts. That's the very reason the salary cap rises. So any way you slice it we will have less salary cap money to sign higher priced players which other teams who didn't place themselves in this situation will have. For example......

Based on top-tier contract data, elite NFL offensive guards in the 2021-2022 era averaged roughly $10–$16 million annually, with premier players like Brandon Scherff and Joe Thuney reaching $16+ million per year.

For the 2025 NFL season, top-tier offensive guards are earning over $20 million annually, with elite players like Tyler Smith averaging $24 million and Trey Smith over $23.5 million.

These increased salaries are across the board from S to CB to WR to QB. Being at the lower end of salary caps among NFL teams makes it nearly impossible to compete for top players on the FA market. If you do manage to get one that's even less money you have to address other glaring needs with quality players. Guys with the least amount of money end up with the fewest good toys.

You know, like that one kid on the block who has a nice bicycle but every other toy his parents buy him come from the Dollar Tree.

AB also made some pretty good trades and FA signings. We got a better player back for Newsome and the Cooper and Jeudy trades were good for us too. I like AB and glad we kept him. I'm anxious to see how he does in the upcoming draft and FA period. If AB does as well this year as last, I think we can be very competitive this season.

Yep, I am happy we kept AB too. For the reasons you and Irish mentioned.

Honestly, I liked KS too but after what I've been reading and what I heard on talk shows I'm glad we made a change. KS is knowledgeable and is a good coach IMO. From what I've read and heard on talk shows I think he was lacking with discipline and holding players and other coaches accountable. In other words, he was too easy on them. Todd Monken seems just the opposite, and he has a good track record as a coach. Will he work out? Who knows but I certainly hope so.

Talk shows are where I get my opinions from. They have to know more than the Falcons do. I mean he couldn't even make the playoffs after this FO got Flacco off his couch.

While I didn't put a ton of time into it, this is what I was searching for the other day and kept running into the numbers of our specialists (kicker/punter/LS). So thank you for finding and posting that up.

Also, your post about penalties was illuminating. I did not realize we were on the one end of the ST penalty rankings. Thank you for posting that.


I can definitely see how those two things point to roster vs coaching regarding our ST woes. Now I'm wondering if that $400k difference in average pay was us not having that "ST ace" on the roster (ex. Cribbs, who was as good a gunner as he was a returner).