Jeremy Springer wants Patriots special teams to return to its glory days

New England’s new special teams coordinator was introduced on Wednesday.

When 12-year-old Jeremy Springer and his brother watched the New England Patriots defeat the Oakland Raiders in the divisional round of the 2001-02 playoffs, little did he know that he would be coaching for the team one day. On Wednesday, 22 years after the “Tuck Rule Game,” Springer was officially introduced as the Patriots’ new special teams coordinator.

Him referencing the Patriots dynasty during his first meeting with the local media was more than an attempt at buttering up the crowd. For Springer, those glory days are something that he is trying to emulate.

“My approach is to get back to the elite level that it’s been in the past,” he said. “[Matthew] Slater left, and those guys, and the Super Bowl runs that they had. Get to a level of being in the top five, being a team where every play we take the field teams got to prepare for us because we’re going to play at an elite level.”

Springer witnessed that elite level of special teams play back in January 2002 against the Raiders, watching Adam Vinatieri kick two big field goals to help the Patriots advance to the next round and eventually their first Super Bowl win.

In general, sound special teams play was a key part of New England’s two-decade dynasty. Springer is well aware of that.

“I just think of certain plays where it was a one-score game here, and a blocked punt. A one-score game, field goal or big-time tackle or big-time ball down inside the 10-yard line,” he said. “Those type of plays, those thin margins of error … are crucial. And I’ve seen all those plays made in this building and on that field from being a fan in the past.”

Springer was one of three new coordinators introduced by the team on Wednesday, and the one with the lowest profile arriving in New England.

Whereas Alex Van Pelt is a seasoned coach who coordinated the Cleveland Browns offense the last four years, and DeMarcus Covington has been on the Patriots’ defensive staff since 2017, Springer’s résumé is not of the same quality. He started his career in college, and only made the move to the NFL as the Los Angeles Rams’ assistant special teams coach in 2022.

Nonetheless, his experience especially in L.A. will serve as the basis of his first coordinator gig and is shaping approach to coaching New England’s special teams.

“It’s all about development, and it’s all about the process,” he said. “That team that we had was very young, but sticking to the process, sticking to the development day by day, not trying to get ahead of ourselves. Just take it one day at a time. It’s going to click at some point, you just have to believe in the process.”

That belief in the process is what Springer hopes will help the Patriots rebound after some inconsistent special teams performances in the last few seasons — and then some: as he said, he wants to build a top five unit in the NFL.

How will he measure that, though?

“There’s a number of ways,” Springer explained. “How we’re covering, what our net punt looks like, how efficient our specialists are, how good our returners are, and then just how good we are really in the coverage game; when we get our returns, how effective we are there.

“I think every year’s different. It depends on the team, depends on what you’re doing with that team, whether you’re a big return team or not, or maybe you don’t have a returner so you’e not returning the ball a whole lot, but you’re a big-time coverage team, you punt the ball quite a bit. It just kind of depends on the flow of that season.”

Recently, that flow has worked against the Patriots. Moving forward, Springer wants to change course by taking the past as an example.