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Looking at the offensive numbers put up against the Browns by the Jets in Week 10, there is no conceivable reason that Cleveland should have come away with a loss. New York had a measly 54 yards passing, just 127 yards on the ground, had quarterback Justin Fields sacked three times for a loss of 12 yards, and committed the game\u2019s lone turnover.<\/p>\n
The Browns offense was not great by any measure, but it was certainly better than what the Jets put forth. The difference, however, was on special teams, where the Browns gave up a 99-yard kickoff return to\u00a0Kene Nwangwu\u00a0for a touchdown, and followed that up by yielding a 74-yard punt return to\u00a0Isaiah Williams.<\/p>\n
The two plays were separated by just a little more than 30 seconds, and put the Browns in a catch-up mode that the offense is just not prepared to handle. There were other reasons the game was lost, but special teams was a firm No. 1 on the list.<\/p>\n
In the wake of that disaster, there were the natural knee-jerk reactions that called for the firing of special teams coach Bubba Ventrone. On the whole, the Browns\u2019 special teams have not been bad this season, but a missed field goal in Week 1 did cost a win against the\u00a0Bengals\u2013though the special teams deserves ample credit for the impressive Week 3 win over the Packers.<\/p>\n
Still, coach Kevin Stefanski was asked about the job security of Ventrone last week, and Stefanski essentially shrugged off any notion of firing him. \u201cI have a ton of faith in Bubba, I have a ton of faith in our special teams,\u201d Stefanski said.<\/p>\n
On Thursday, Ventrone\u2013who played for eight\u00a0NFL\u00a0seasons and coached 11 more\u2013met with the media and was asked about the vote of confidence from the head coach.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat\u2019s good to hear,\u201d Ventrone said. \u201cI respect Kev a lot, and I\u2019ll say this \u2013 I\u2019ve been in the NFL a long time. I\u2019ve played, I\u2019ve coached for a long time. You know, there\u2019s times when stuff does not go your way, and the game comes down to playing with great fundamentals and techniques. So, if you\u2019re not doing those things, you\u2019re going to get beat.<\/p>\n
\u201cUnfortunately, we\u2019re learning the hard way right now.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Browns are a young team, and that\u2019s been an overriding factor for the group\u2013special teams has been manned by more rookies than most teams would like.\u00a0 Ventrone cited that as a reason for the struggles.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s definitely contributed to it,\u201d Ventrone said. \u201cIt\u2019s not the only underlying factor. But like I said, we, just as a unit, as a collective group, we have to do a better job of playing our technique, and playing into the scheme, and just trusting that just do your job and that the guy next to you is going to do his job.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat\u2019s the best way to do it. The best way to play coverage is play complementary to one another, leverage, tackling. We just haven\u2019t done a good enough job of that.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Pittsburgh Penguins have had many a pleasant surprise over their first 17 games. They\u2019ve gotten a lot of life out of mid-level free agent signings like Justin Brazeau, Anthony Mantha and Parker Wotherspoon. Arturs Silovs has looked the part of an NHL goalie. Tristan Jarry and even Ryan Graves have started upon redemption journeys, no matter how modest or long-lasting they might be. Evgeni Malkin has seemingly turned back the hands of time. Erik Karlsson is playing like he has something to prove. Sidney Crosby is, well, you can\u2019t be too surprised that he\u2019s still the best player on the ice most nights but at 38 it\u2019s still something to see.<\/p>\n
The progression of Ben Kindel, however, is arguably their finest and most pleasant surprise of all so far. No one had him even close to the NHL radar in 2025-26 (though, hey, at least we were able to\u00a0raise the possibility of the unexpected)<\/p>\n
Those seven other forwards who fit in the category are Zach Benson, Cole Sillinger, Ryan O\u2019Reilly, Patrice Bergeron, Dustin Brown, Justin Williams and Sykora. Of those, only the first two have had their rookie seasons in the last 15 years.<\/p>\n
Not only is Kindel making it, he\u2019s excelling. It\u2019s early, small sample, blah blah but Kindel has stepped right in and looked the part of a player who can drive his own line and now has stepped up to the first line to play on the wing. Kindel\u2019s two-way play was touted coming out of the WHL just as much as his ability to produce points and that has been the case thus far in his first 15 NHL games.<\/p>\n
Of the others, here are some stat lines for their rookie years:<\/p>\n
These players, of course, were far from finished products even though it is rare to even show enough to stick in the NHL from this age without being a top-10 draft pick. One commonality amongst these players seems to be a defensive conscious, Beregron won six Selke trophies in his career, O\u2019Reilly has won the award once. Brown and Sykora picked up Selke votes in their careers and were known as reliable players off the puck, as was Williams. It wouldn\u2019t be a surprise if Kindel joins them to at least find his name on Selke ballots in the future if he eventually grows into a penalty killing center as his career blossoms. That makes sense on the surface level, if a young player is going to make it right off the bat they have to instantly create some trust away from the puck and demonstrate a good compete and detail level to their game beyond their young age.<\/p>\n
As the stats above show, there\u2019s a lot more offensive upside for the players to find. Most of the rookies ended up in the 25-30ish point range as draft+1 NHLers and almost all of them eventually found their game grow into being 60+ players (including Benson, who got to 60 in his second season). That hasn\u2019t always been the case \u2014 Sillinger has no more than 33 points over his four NHL seasons and may never reach the levels that just about everyone else did but the track record there is fairly strong and shows a clear path about a promising future is ahead for young Kindel.<\/p>\n
Of course, one doesn\u2019t need this article to realize all of that, the eye test is showing in spades the impressiveness in Kindel\u2019s game. It was only a month ago when the Pens\u2019 coaches\u00a0had a plan\u00a0to cycle Kindel out as a healthy scratch at times to keep him from getting overloaded. Plans can change, Kindel has played the last eight games in a row and more all the time (scoring five points and averaging 16:30 per game while playing more minutes each game in the last four games than he played in all of his first 11). The scratches have gone away because there hasn\u2019t been a need lately to give him time off.<\/p>\n
Kindel has been able to handle what the Pens have asked, whether that\u2019s been centering his own line or now moving up to play wing with Crosby. For someone drafted outside of the top-10 and won\u2019t turn 19 until after the regular season ends that could be the biggest and best surprise of them all this season in Pittsburgh.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Looking at the offensive numbers put up against the Browns by the Jets in Week 10, there is no conceivable reason that Cleveland should have come away with a loss. New York…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":8821,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8822","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-hot-news"],"aioseo_notices":[],"aioseo_head":"\n\t\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t