Each NFL club was required to reduce its roster to 75 players today and that limit led to some long snappers losing their spot. Charley Hughlett (Jaguars), Jeremy Cain (Buccaneers), Jorgen Hus (Rams), Casey Kreiter (Cowboys) and Luke Ingram (Steelers) have all been let go.
Only the Steelers and Niners have two snappers remaining on the roster, with Bryce Davis and Greg Warren in Pittsburgh and Kyle Nelson and Kevin McDermott in San Francisco.
August is the time that NFL long snappers tend to get some rare publicity. The story of the anonymous athletes who play perhaps the least glamorous position always makes for interesting reading and viewing. The story of Jon Dornebos of the Eagles is no different.
The veteran snapper has appeared in the Pro Bowl and been a reliable and consistent long snapper. In addition, he is also known as the “Magic Man”, due to his other professional career as a magician. This week, HBO Real Sports profiled his snapping, his magic and his tragic childhood. Specifically, Dorenbos has overcome the loss of his mother after his father killed her when he was just 12.
Most snappers have an interesting story about how they became a snapper. In Dorenbos’ case, his story is even more compelling and remarkable given what he has overcome to reach the top of his profession.
With the first roster cut down to 75 players approaching next week, two teams have made snapping moves in advance of that deadline. The Patriots waived rookie Travis Ott, while the Bears dropped CFL veteran, but NFL rookie, Chad Rempel.
With these moves, Danny Aiken will remain as the Patriots snapper and it looks like Brandon Hartson may have won the job to replace retired veteran Pat Mannelly in Chicago.
The first major snapping move since training camps began involved veteran Steeler Greg Warren, who suffered a torn meniscus in practice Wednesday. Warren, who has previously torn the ACL in both of his knees, is expected to miss about four weeks of action.
Bryce Davis is the other snapper in camp and the Steelers have brought back Luke Ingram to help solidify the position during Warren’s absence. Ingram was in camp with the Steelers and Jaguars during training camp last season.
Yesterday, the Pro Football Hall of Fame inducted Ray Guy as the first punter to have received the honor. Guy, who was also a first round pick by the Raiders, joins placekicker Jan Stenerud as the only kickers in the Hall of Fame.
Although a snapper may never be a Hall of Fame selection, it is still a positive development to see that kicking specialists have been recognized for their important contributions to the game.
With every NFL team now in training camp, it is a good time to reveal the training camp edition of Longsnap.com’s exclusive NFL Long Snappers Chart. The most recent snapping transaction involved Kyle Nelson being added by the Niners. Nelson was let by the Redskins earlier this week after spending most of last year as the replacement for the injured Nick Sundberg.
A total of eight teams have two snappers in camp and the battle to replace Pat Mannelly in Chicago will be one of the key battles to watch in training camp.
2014 Training Camp Long Snapper Chart
It was revealed yesterday that Quentin Skinner Jr., a 13 year old rising eighth grade snapper, has received a verbal offer of a college scholarship. Skinner attended a specialists camp at LSU this past weekend. He made such an impression on the special teams coach at Southern University that they offered him a scholarship, assuming the same coaching staff is in place when he enters college…in 2019!
Skinner started working with snapping guru Chris Rubio when he was 10 years old. The offer is the earliest a snapper has ever been offered a college scholarship and certainly one of the earliest for any football player at any position.
Vikings special teams coach Mike Priefer will be suspended by the team for up to three games this season as a result of his conduct with former Vikings punter Chris Kluwe. Kluwe alleges that Priefer made various inappropriate remarks to Kluwe. An independent investigation could only confirm a single offensive statement attributable to Priefer that was later confirmed by Cullen Loeffler, the Vikings snapper.
Priefer can have his three game suspension reduced to two games if he attends anti-harrassment, diversity and sexual-orientation sensitivity training.
NFL training camps are opening around the country and, in preparation for the upcoming season, some kickers, punters and long snappers headed to California to prepare.
Stu Wood of the Wall Street Journal recently profiled the Launching Pad, an intense camp for specialists run by former NFL kicker John Carney. Wood’s article, which includes video highlights of the camp, describes the variety of workouts during the camp. Josh Harris of the Falcons was one of the snappers in attendance this year.
Noted football analytics website Pro Football Focus has finally turned its sharp analysis skills to the long snapping position. 2013 was the first season PFF began grading snappers as part of their evaluation of every NFL player. It is often difficult to truly evaluate a snapper in an objective manner. Although Longsnap.com has been carefully tracking long snapper tackles in punt coverage since 2000, that stat alone is not necessarily a great indicator of snapping ability.
PFF notes that its analysis does not just factor “botched snaps”, but also considers whether a snap was “significantly off-line”. The grades also are composed of a snapper’s contribution in coverage and grades were lowered for such things as “missed tackles” or “poor lane-discpline”.
Like PFF does for all NFL players, snappers were graded and separated into categories of High Quality, Good Starter, Average Starter, Below Average Starter and Poor Starter. A few snappers were included in the Not Enough Information category for a variety of reasons. Below are the snappers in each category based on their 2013 performance.
HIGH QUALITY: Cox (BAL), Brewer (DEN), Weeks (HOU), Drescher (NO), Dorenbos (PHI) and Windt (SD).
GOOD STARTER: Leach (ARI), Jansen (CAR), Harris (CIN), Ladouceur (DAL), Muhlbach (DET) and Condo (OAK).
AVERAGE STARTER: Sanborn (BUF), Gafford (KC), Loeffler (MIN), Purdum (NYJ), McDermott (SF), Gresham (SEA) and McQuaide (STL).
BELOW AVERAGE STARTER: Harris (ATL), Goode (GB), Tinker (JAX), Denney (MIA), Aiken (NE) and Warren (PIT)
POOR STARTER: Yount (CLE), Overton (IND), DeOssie (NYG) and Brinkley (TEN)
NOT ENOUGH INFORMATION: Hartson (CHI), Cain (TB) and Sundberg (WAS)
Longsnap.com 