National Football League

Bears look forward to revitalizing special teams under Jeff Rodgers

Published May. 19, 2015 9:18 a.m. ET

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After the Chicago Bears bottomed out on special teams in 2014, coordinator Joe DeCamillas had no chance of surviving the tidal wave of firings that swept general manager Phil Emery and head coach Marc Trestman, among others, out the door after the season.

New head coach John Fox has since hired Jeff Rodgers to coordinate Chicago's special teams. Rodgers has coached special teams at the NFL level for over a decade, so the Bears hope his experience can help heal their third phase of the game.

As far as the return game, Rodgers places a premium on security rather than electricity, according to a Q&A he did with ESPN's Jeff Dickerson.

"No. 1 is ball security," Rodgers told ESPN. "Our No. 1 goal of our return game is going to be giving the ball back to the offense. Every guy is different. I've coached bigger guys, smaller guys, faster guys; the ball-security thing is always going to be a common trait. But we're going to scheme our return stuff based on whatever the player does well. That's still yet to be determined. Whoever that guy is will win that job in training camp and into the season, they realize they are competing with everyone else on the roster. They realize they're competing with the guys league-wide who are on rosters. And someone will emerge in that role."

The new coordinator is also stressing the importance of special teams to rookies who are fighting to make the team or trying to find the field.

"You’re trying to educate them on how roster makeup goes," Rodgers said, per ESPN. "The reality is most of these guys have been all-conference or All-American, they've been getting a lot of burn on offense or defense, so there are a lot of guys who come into this league and their roles kind of get defined in a way that if they're going to play on Sunday, if they're going to be active on Sunday, they might have to have a special-teams role. You try to tell them that, but as they get more and more exposure to the veteran players, those guys let them know."

(h/t ESPN)

Photo Credit: Jonathan Daniel/Getty Images

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