Image courtesy of New England Patriots 

NEWPORT, RI – Four weeks ago this Sunday, Jeremy Springer was on the sideline in San Francisco for Super Bowl LX.

You would think that after a soul-crushing loss like the one the Pats had, he’d want to get away from football as much as possible before having to ramp back up again.

Nope.

Instead, Springer was up bright and early on Friday morning, making the trip down to Newport for the annual Big New England Football Clinic to speak as a presenter, talking special teams with high school and college coaches from across the country.

Following his hour-long presentation, Springer was nice enough to sit down with me for about 15 minutes to talk all things Patriots, including telling us that he’s signed a two-year contract extension with the team, which is beyond well-deserved.

Here’s the full interview:

The Super Bowl was just a few weeks ago, so what does offseason preparation entail at this moment?

“Right now, for us it’s all free agency. It’s all the draft and then focus on how can we be more creative in my phase? Coach Vrabel has made it a point to us to find new ways to do it better. Find new ways to be creative in every unit. So, we’re doing a deep dive on all the units right now, figuring out where we were poor at, where we can get better at. We’re figuring out our team with an eye on the future and figuring out the draft as well. So, really we’re just focused on three phases right now: how can we get better creating new ideas? How can we learn about our team and how that’s going to shape out free agency? And then, what holes do we need to fill in the draft? Then, go from there.”

Mike Vrabel has said ‘find new ideas,’ is that sort of what you’re talking about?

“Yes. Find new ways to do it. Find new ideas, because it’s an ever-evolving game, just like any business is. If you get stagnant, you kind of get left behind. If you think that last year is going to go well because we had success, that’s just so false. You’ve got to re-earn everything.”

Every year, you see teams that have made a Super Bowl struggle to get out of the gate or get into any kind of rhythm during the season. How do you avoid that trap?

“I think our head coach is very culture-oriented in what we do and how we do things. That’s not going to change just because we had success last year. We built a foundation, now we’ve got to build on it. That’s the biggest thing with us. Building on what we left off from last year. You can’t have any kind of complacency because this game doesn’t work that way. The NFL doesn’t work that way. So, for me, I look at it as, the foundation and the culture are set, but how do we sustain that? How do we generate no ideas so we can compete again and win those close games?”

When you think back to the Super Bowl, that first kickoff, what was going through your mind?

“Honestly, it felt like a movie, It felt like an entertainment system, a movie. It didn’t feel real. It just felt like there was so much going on. You just kind of wanted to get the game rolling. For me, it was like, let’s get this out of the way so we can play some real football. And we didn’t cover the first kickoff anyway, so it was just, get this out the way and play some real football.”

Sticking with the Super Bowl, what could you have done differently on special teams?

“Man, missed opportunities. A lot of them. I thought we had a chance to help our offense and our defense out in that game. Whether it was a penalty, whether it was a missed block or a few blocks for bigger returns, we could have helped out team so much more. So, it’s all great. It’s like, alright, we failed in terms of doing that for our team, but how can we build on it and learn from it? That’s the growth mindset we have to have. Those are the games…we want to be in a lot of big games again, just like it is every year. How can we help our offense and defense out when they need us? When they need us, we’ve got to be able to come up for them. We’ve all got to pick each other up and when we don’t do that, it’s all on us. That’s what I love about this game.”

How hard was it to watch the Super Bowl again?

“Honestly, I waited a while, probably a couple weeks. I couldn’t. It’s just such a long season, I wanted my mind away from it because I knew it was going to make my blood boil, especially with the missed opportunities. We had an opportunity in that game on special teams to really help our team out and I don’t think we did that. It’s good to build off that, good to grow from it and I’m excited to see how we progress.”

What’s it been like working with Bryce Baringer as he enters the final year of his contract?

“Man, I love the three guys we have in that room. They’re young guys. Bryce is in his fourth year, still a young guy technically. I’m excited to see his development and what kind of things he picks up on in his own offseason journey. Then, when he comes to OTAs, how can we better do things with him so we’re playing with a level of consistency? He’s playing 25 games with three preseason games, so, we’re looking for ways to make him feel fresher and more consistent. I’m excited for him. He’s a huge talent. He’s a great kid that works his tail off.”

Bryce got a lot of grief for his performance down the stretch, particularly in the AFC Championship. How much of that was just fans not understanding what you guys were trying to do in those conditions?

“I think people need to understand, that on punt protection, or on punt, if the punter kicks a 70-yard bomb, it’s not always a good thing. In this game, the returners are really good. When you give them space, they kill space. So, sometimes, you’ve got to go into games and limit that space. One way to do that is choosing the way you punt. In that game, we had to change the way Bryce punted to more of a flip game than more of a spiral game because of the weather and because of the returner. The weather was really bad and the returner (Marvin Mims) was an All-Pro returner. For us, playing against a backup quarterback, how do we limit them getting big returns? They had the most 20+ yard returns in the NFL last year. People didn’t realize that either. So, in order to do that you flip the ball. Sure, our average wasn’t great, but they averaged two yards a return in that game.

“It was critical for that game with a backup quarterback. I do get mad about that because a lot of people just don’t understand…what Bryce did in that game was exactly what we needed. Yeah, he had one off the side of his foot (33-yarder in the 4th quarter), you don’t want that, but it was really shitty weather and the defense bailed us out. The AFC Championship and Super Bowl, those were his two best games of the year in my opinion.”

I’ve heard some stuff about your contract, any truth that you’ve signed an extension?

“Yeah. Two years. Blessed for the opportunity, blessed to work with some incredible people every day. I’m so excited to be here. I say it all the time, but I live on a week-to-week basis, a year-to-year basis. It doesn’t matter what happened, the work is still being in the present. All that matters for me right now is the month of March, then April, then June. I’m just excited to keep working with this staff and to have this opportunity. It’s a blast.”

This time of year, how much are you scouting college special teams guys? Or, is it more other coaches bringing guys up to you to go and scout or watch film on?

“I do a deep study on all the specialists. So, punters, kickers and snappers I do a deep study because it’s the future. You want to know what’s coming in and God forbid Bryce gets hurt, you’ve got to have an answer. So, we do a deep study on the class and we’ll have our rankings board. Then, we do the free agents. We’re always looking at those guys. If you’re looking at competition, you’ve got to be able to bring in the right guy for the competition if it needs to be had. On top of that, now you’re looking at the draft for other positions too, you’re helping coaches out. Whatever Ryan and Eliot and those guys need, we’ll do that as well. And, we’ll be tracking undrafted guys, like the Elijah Ponder’s of the world. The Brendan Schooler’s of the world that come in and are core-four starters for you. That’s a lot of work we do behind the scenes and go from there.”

What did you learn last year from a coaching perspective, especially since it was such a whirlwind ride? 

“I learned that the connection on the team is by far the most important factor. Players make us better. You have Marcus Jones, Brendan Schooler, Drake Maye, they’re obviously going to make us better as coaches because they’re damn good football players. After that, the connection you have with the team just goes so far. I thought it was so key last year. Winning helps the connection obviously, but the leadership in that locker room, the connection Vrabel had with the team…I thought us as a coaching staff had connection with the players, our groups, our guys. That paved the way to help us through any adversity we faced, the losses or the success, we were able to do it the right way because of the connection. I can’t say enough about Stefon Diggs, Mack Hollins, Morgan Moses, the guys we signed and brought in, it was truly, truly unbelievable.”

Knowing how much of a grind it was and how long it took to get to that final game, how hard is it to ramp back up heading into OTAs?

“I think everyone needs a little time off and we surely get that, so that’s awesome. But, I think when you look back, any time you have success, it’s all about the process. You don’t necessarily appreciate the moment because you kind of move on from it. Like, you won the game, it was cool, but you think about all the work that you put in. That’s the exciting part. Yeah, every day is fun, but when you look back…I look back at last year and I don’t think about the wins. I look back at stuff like training camp, the four Hs. Or, ‘remember when we had a shit week in Minnesota on special teams, but it was a part of what we needed to go through to get us where we were?’ So, I enjoy that it’s a new process, a new year. Whatever we did last year does not mean anything. That’s the hard part about this profession and like most professions, you can’t live on past success. You’ve got to be able to move forward, create new ideas and get this thing rolling. We’ll be ready to go to work.”