There is more than one great irony associated with one of the biggest on-field turnarounds this year with the B.C. Lions, who hope the trend will continue on a Smooth Jazz Saturday.
Give or take the growth along the line of scrimmage, the improvement of the special teams units of the CFL team so far this season has been massive. It’s been achieved with a comparative quiet relative to the persona of the guy in charge of football’s version of the French foreign legion, Jeff Reinebold.
B.C.’s special teams coordinator returns to the place he called home for parts of five previous seasons Saturday against the Hamilton Tiger Cats (1 p.m., TSN, 11 a.m. pre-game TSN 1040) with a unit that bears no resemblance to many of the groups assembled before him.
The guy in charge of the group making the quietest improvement is by far the only coach at practices who uses a parabolic microphone and speaker to bark out instructions and doesn’t need one, given that his voice carries for blocks anyways.
No coach in the CFL also famously uses social media as widely, tweeting all communication in ALL CAPS. Nobody is also as recognized for his work as an NFL TV analyst for Sky Sports, which only has 12.6 million subscribers in the United Kingdom and consumes the early part of Reinebold’s workday before tackling his primary job with the Lions.
There are a couple of holdover threats on special teams who have helped the Lions hover near respectability as they head into the stretch drive. Kicker Ty Long is leading the CFL in net punting for a second straight year and is pushing to overtake Jon Ryan’s league mark while making huge strides in directional play.
Chris Rainey remains the league’s top returner. Rainey’s mere presence factored in last week’s critical move admitted by Ticats coach June Jones not to kick a late field goal.
But everything else about the Lions special teams this season looks, and sounds different, making good use of young pros like Mitch Barnett and Frederic Chagnon who toil in anonymity but make a contribution nonetheless.
Many coaches in Reinebold’s position seek unique ways to maintain a level of interest among players who see the less glamorous side of downfield tackling. B.C.’s special teams coach does more.
Each day of the special teams practice week carries a musical theme, from Motown Mondays to Sandwich Island Sundays.
“If I had it my way I’d have Whitney Houston Wednesdays,” said Lions long-snapper Mike Benson. “But that’s just me.”
Most days of the week start with a darts competition in the special teams meeting room. Weeks which end with a win means a special teams player is given temporary possession of a miniature Tiki carving to recognize their contribution which Reinebold brought from his off-season home in Hawaii.
Reinebold also has a happy knack of talking to his group while snapping his fingers, as befitting a Greenwich Village beatnik in the 1960s. Nobody seems to know why it is done, or at least nobody was willing to break ranks and reveal a company secret. But Reinebold is getting his points across, and if practice field body language counts for anything has bonded with coach Wally Buono like few other assistants over the better part of two decades.
B.C. has dramatically reduced penalty yardage totals compared to last season and is far better in punt return average than last year, even though nobody on the Lions kick and cover units are even close to the top 10 in special teams tackles so far.
“Jeff came with the reputation, and I don’t know if it did him justice because he’s even better than I thought he’d be,” said Buono, who calls himself Reinebold’s assistant on special teams.
“He bleeds special teams schemes,” said Benson, one of the few holdovers who also served under Marcello Simmons and Chuck McMann. “He knows the team we’re playing inside out—height, weight, middle name, birthdate. You can tell his passion relays to guys.”
It’s worked with Long. Not only has the CFL sophomore been able to add nearly three yards to his punt average but Long is doing so while mastering the specialty of three-down football known as directional kicking.
“When I say this year has been surprisingly cool it really has,” said Long. “I didn’t know what to expect. The thing that’s cool about (Reinebold) is that he’s figured me out.”
A discussion with the 60-year-old football lifer and cancer survivor is just as apt to veer to his media gig, which he landed while working in player development for NFL Europe and might just as likely take his career eventually elsewhere if his love for paddleboarding doesn’t send him in a different direction first.
Getting young players to understand the thrill of wedge blocking is one thing. Another is growing the game outside North America, which is why CFL commissioner Randy Ambrosie has called on Reinebold for advice at a time when the man in charge of three-down football is seeking ways to improve domestic consumption by connecting the game globally.
Reinebold even has time because of his Sky Sports gig for the rarest of breeds in football, the beat writer.
“I have great appreciation for your job and the sensitive nature of what you do, especially when you’re a beat writer and have to be there every day and come up with stuff every day,” said Reinebold, who coached under Hamilton’s Jones at the University of Hawaii and credits his coaching development to his father, a former baseball scout.
“One of the passions in my life is to grow this game around the world.” And whether it’s on Tupac Tuesdays or Smooth Jazz Saturdays, Reinebold is doing just that in his own somewhat quiet way with the Lions this year.
LIONS TALES: Travis Lulay did only light throwing in individual periods this week but that was enough to get him back on the active roster as the third-string quarterback Saturday… Hamilton will be without standout defensive lineman Jamaal Westerman, who was lost for the season as a result of an injury suffered in the 35-32 loss to the Lions last week.
