The Untold Story of the NFL’s Most Mysterious Coaching Role Few Ever Notice

For what it’s worth, both Browns have done kicker consulting work in the past, outside of the structure of college or NFL staffs.

Gould coaches for John Harbaugh’s brother, Jim, with the Los Angeles Chargers, as their assistant special teams coach. For what it’s worth, the Harbaughs are a part of three of these four coaches’ journeys, as Tyler Brown also was on Jim’s staff at the University of Michigan.

Gould is the brother of 2006 first-team All-Pro kicker Robbie Gould, and Chris kicked for the University of Virginia. After three years of arena football, Chris decided to get into the coaching world. Gould’s career actually overlapped with Green Bay kicker Brandon McManus when they were together in Denver from 2015 to 2021. Chris was first hired to be a coaching assistant in 2015 before being promoted to assistant special teams coach in 2017. His contract expired after the 2021 season, and he left for Los Angeles that offseason.

This is all to say that there aren’t many place-kicking or punting specialists in the league. Four guys in the NFL have a background in that, and three have come from the Harbaugh tree, the only one that seems to care about the subject matter. On the coordinator level, there’s just one guy, Darrin Simmons, who has not been available on the market since the Bengals hired him to be special teams coordinator in 2003. We’re still waiting on a long snapper to break the coaching barrier.