San Francisco 49ers special teams coordinator Brian Schneider spoke to reporters on Tuesday after the team's sixth training camp practice. Here is everything he said.
Transcript provided by the San Francisco 49ers Communications staff.
What do you know now about the kickoff rule that you didn't know the last time we talked to you?
"Well, you can't put the ball on the tee flat like that. That's what I do know. And there's probably going to be more changes. That's the other thing I know. So we will deal with it as they come."
Did you guys do that earlier in camp before you were told not to?
"No, we've messed around with some different things, but that's one of the things you looked at or heard about. But yeah, that's off the table now. So we'll just go with however it plays out."
Is what you look for in the kicker change in terms of obviously hang time and distance is maybe less important than how you can control those line drive kicks and things like that. What's the difference?
"Yeah, you just said it. That's probably the easiest way to explain it. Hang time does not matter at all anymore. So placement, where you're going with it or I think what a lot of things are going to happen, we call them dirty balls where once it hits the ground, that's when everyone can move. So whether it's that extreme or just more of a line drive that's what I think is going to happen. So more of a target practice, basically, instead of hang time is out, doesn't matter."
What have you seen from K Jake Moody in those aspects?
"Yeah, good. That's something he's been working on all summer and he's been preparing for it and it just changes. Their whole lives, kickers have been told hang time number one and placement. And now hang time's out. So it's really just placement."
Have you done any research on defensive guys who have played soccer?
"Oh yeah. We ask everybody and you have to have a guy to do that. And I think with the position player, if you had one, there's just a lot that goes into it, through the game. If he's playing? If he gets sore? If you get outside the target line, if you get outside the 20, that's pretty big penalty starting on the 40. So that's going to happen too with guys that don't kick every day. So we don't have a guy, but, we'll see who does it."
I'm sure you saw WR Deebo Samuel lobbying for getting some kickoffs. So I'm sure that decision will be made by head coach Kyle Shanahan. Is there something to that where a guy who is powerful like that can hit the middle and only the kicker's going to be there?
"Yeah, I think there's a lot of things that nobody knows what it's going to look like. The one thing I do know though is you have to have returners that can get to the ball. Just with what I said about the kickers, when you take hang time out of it, it's going to start in simplest form to me as a kicker and returner game because they're the only ones that can move until the ball either touches somebody or hits the ground. So right there, simplify that to me is like, 'okay, that's where it starts.' So that's where the game starts."
It looks like Moody broke the team down at the end practice today.
"Yeah, Kyle brought him up there."
What do you have to say about that? How has Moody performed?
"Moody's done a really nice job. It's always fun seeing guys in their second year come in the building when camp starts. I saw it in Jake. You see it in [LB] Dee Winters. You see it in [LB Jalen] Graham. You see it in those guys. It's just a whole different feel where their body feels like how comfortable they are. They know exactly what it looks like. So they're all really excited. And Jake was no different on that. It's just a different mentality coming in year two."
CB Darrell Luter Jr. obviously had a mishap in the Super Bowl. How have you seen him respond from that?
"Luter's great. Luter is a great worker. He gets better every day. He was on PUP for a while last year I think. So it took him longer to develop. But no, he's excellent. He works great. I love him."
When you're looking at the punt returners and you have WR Trent Taylor back there who's very experienced, more of a natural fielder of the punt than maybe WR Ricky Pearsall is? He seems like he's learning how to do it.
"I would say Trent is just so good because of how many reps he's had. The punt return is a thing of reps. So the more reps you see at the ball flight, the different nose, where the ball's going and just fielding the ball. So Trent is excellent back there. He's done it for so long. So confident. So cool. And so it's really cool to get all those guys as many reps as we can and helping everybody. It's about just getting the reps. So that's where he looks really natural at it."
You tried multiple combinations back there for kick return. Are you still kind of working through what you're looking for or is the idea that we may have multiple combinations that we use at various points this year?
"We're trying everyone there, basically every running back is back there, the receivers, we're trying everybody. And I think what I'm anticipating it looks like and I'd rather anticipate it this way, is all the different kind of balls you're going to get. And I think when you can move returners around, again the cat and mouse game, but also there's a lot like you put Deebo and [FB Kyle Juszczyk] Juice back there, they have a real instinctual piece about them. My job as a coach is to give them any tells we have, to let them know where we think the ball is going by alignment, by the kicker, by the wind, whatever it is, give them that information so they can anticipate where the ball's going. But now there's some just internal instincts that really good football players have that. I don't know if they can tell you why they felt something but moving with the kicker as he comes. So it's all about fielding a ball clean. So if I'm on kickoff return, when we're doing kickoff return, if we can field the ball clean, we have all the advantage. There is no advantage for the kickoff team. It's zero. If on our kickoff team as we're covering, if we can get the returner, not catch it clean, that's the only advantage I see for a kickoff team or the hit the ground go into the end zone and now the ball's at the 20. So another dirty ball is the way we look at it. So that's where I see, and if it's not that, it's not that, but I want to start there."
With Deebo and Juice in particular just because they have so much experience in the run game, like in the actual offense, is that almost how you have to view it as like, 'hey, there's an element here too?' If these guys are familiar in that way in terms of like Deebo running behind Juice or whatever.
"Yeah, if it turns into trying to steal possessions from our team or it turns into trying to win field position by kicking dirty balls because in special teams, teams try to attack us that way. We've had multiple teams try to fake punts against us, to steal another possession. So going into that, I almost kind of look at it, you have to have your best players back there if that's what they're doing. And think of hands team, when we do a hands team at the end of a game, we have all our best players there and the reason they're there is they're our best players. They have the instinct, the ability, whatever it is, the no hesitation, something told them to do something and they move on it. So that's kind of how we look at it. And we're trying a bunch of different guys there to see who has the skill set there."
Have you talked to Run Game Coordinator/Offensive Line Chris Foerster at all? Just in terms of like blocking schemes, big picture on those returns?
"Absolutely, yeah. The kickoff return looks more like a offensive/defensive play than a kickoff return. So all those principles, I think it's way more comparable on an offense and defense, how it's lined up. The difference is how we get there on a kickoff return is different than how an offense and defense gets there. But once you get engaged, all football rules are the same. So that's the thing we're trying to figure out is where are our eyes going? Where's our helmet going? What is our steps? How are we getting there? How do we get to that spot? And then it's really just a football play. It's an offensive/defensive play where leverage, hand placement, footwork, eyes, physicality, all of it. So that's what we're trying to figure out. And we don't know what it looks like yet."
Taking that into account, are you going to get more out of this than you've gotten out of preseason in years?
"Absolutely. I can't wait for Thursday night to see what it looks like. So every preseason game I don't think it's going to end until the end of the season. Think of like, I just compared it to an offensive, defensive play, right? The fundamentals of football haven't changed all that much. We know all those answers. But take Kyle's offense. The outside zone that he was running here in '17, there's probably a lot more wrinkles to it now. In fact, there is a lot more wrinkles to it now because they have so much history on it. They start scheming on it. You see what the defense is doing and it evolves. No one has any information on this play. Zero. So as the plays happen, as schemes happen, as you see things and put what they're doing, what works with us, what we've already done. It's going to be constantly evolving until we get enough information on it and then you can start moving. So it's going to be an adjustment all year."
Have you talked to other special teams coaches around the league? Are guys in your position around the league being real inquisitive with one another about this to try to conquer this whole thing?
"That question was asked in spring and we had a couple big all special teams, I think we had three Zoom meetings. So it was really clear to everybody. I talked to a couple guys I know, and they were being quiet. I haven't talked to anybody. So the tape is going to be the work."
You haven't seen this play live very much, right? You practice this play, but as far as live reps of it, how many reps have we seen of it?
"Whatever you call in practice live, whatever we can do, which is going to be different when it actually is tackling. That's the difference, the speed. We know how fast guys run down the field. All the kickoffs I've ever coached and our players have ever run, we know exactly how fast the guys are. We know exactly what moves they do. We know when they go back door or away from the return, if they have enough speed to get there. So you take all that speed out and now we don't know what it looks like when a returner is going left - I don't know if I can go backdoor. I don't know if I can go and have enough speed to get there. So all those things, and now those decisions have to be made within this five yards. So think of it last year, if I'm on the kickoff team and all of us are running, the ball's kicked, we're moving, we have four seconds to take in all the information that the other team is giving us. How the returner, where he's moving. What is the blocking scheme? How deep are they going? So guys have always processed a kickoff that way. Running full speed and all these indicators getting them to the football. Now, think of this, every play these guys have ever done, when the ball is snapped everybody moves, right? When the ball is kicked, everybody moves. And then that's how they've trained their whole life on moving and making decisions. Now the ball is kicked, they don't move. And now they have to process all that without moving. It might sound like, yeah, that's easy. I don't know if it is easy. Some guys can't process all that. They have to process a totally different way. So that's where we started. Let's start there because we don't know what everything else looks like. But what is different about this play? How can we train our eyes and our footwork and our decision making with the information we have now? And then when it happens, it happens really fast. So if you're false stepping, if you don't have a plan, it's going to be too quick."
Can the athleticism of a long snapper like LS Taybor Pepper be something that can tip the scales at this point now? Can they be more involved? It doesn't appear that maybe the athleticism of a long snapper was as valued as maybe it is now when you're in this situation.
"For punts, that's always going to be it. But for kickoffs, Pep would not be involved in that. He'll just do the punt stuff. And we always work on him trying to be a factor in coverage, because those are always the best long snappers, the ones that can be a factor."