Browns special teams coordinator Mike Priefer says punter Jamie Gillan ‘devastated’ by dropped snap

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BEREA, Ohio -- Browns special teams coordinator Mike Priefer estimates punter Jamie Gillan and the Browns take more snaps off the JUGS machine during the spring and training camp than any team in the league. He estimated at least 50 during the week and, during training camp, 15 to 20 each of punt and field goal snaps off the machine.

“He’s got great hands, he’s a great athlete,” Priefer said on Thursday. “He wasn’t a holder until he got here and he became a really good holder. I think he is a good holder. I can’t explain why he dropped it.”

It, of course, was the punt snap Gillan dropped on a fourth-and-12 from the Browns’ 23 with 8:42 left in the fourth quarter and his team clinging to a 29-27 lead. Gillan attempted to pick up the ball at the 11 and run but was tackled at the 15, where Kansas City took over and, three plays later, scored the game-winning touchdown.

Priefer called the drop inexcusable on Thursday and echoed what head coach Kevin Stefanski said on Monday: Gillan should have still kicked the ball.

“We had it blocked up,” Priefer said. “(The Chiefs) had a return look, but we’ve got to pick (the ball) up, take one step and punt it out of there and he didn’t react the way we wanted him to.”

Priefer said maybe Gillan’s rugby instincts took over when he snapped the ball off the ground, ran to his right, spun away from one tackler only to end up engulfed by red jerseys. Gillan, a left-footed punter, also hurt himself by running the direction he did.

“If anything go left,” Priefer said. “We work on similar things, like if the ball goes over his head, he circles back this way so he can scoop it up and then punt with his left foot. We talk about different situations -- bad snaps or dropped snaps.”

They talk through it, but one thing Priefer and his special teams units don’t do is practice it.

“I don’t like to practice failure,” Priefer said. “I’m being serious, like a fire call on a field goal. We muff a field goal snap, we talk about it, we might walk through it, but we never want to actually practice that exact situation because, to me, if you’re practicing a dropped snap, you’re practicing failure.”

Priefer said he didn’t talk to Gillan on the sideline about the play in case the Browns had to punt again, which they did, and Priefer said they did a good job on that punt.

“We talked about it a little bit on the airplane and he had really no excuse, no excuse why he dropped it,” Priefer said. “He’s not an excuse-maker, he’s a standup guy and he knows he’s got to perform at a high level and keep being a weapon for our football team and it starts this Sunday.”

Priefer acknowledged his punter was broken up about the play.

“Oh, devastated,” he said. “We all were. We all were for him and for our football team.”

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