[size=13pt]Special teams: Paul Ferraro, the East Coast connection[/size]

Shortly after Brad Childress was named coach, he selected Paul Ferraro to be his special teams coordinator.

Last update: September 07, 2006 – 7:15 PM

During his time as the defensive coordinator at Rutgers, Paul Ferraro would make the occasional trip to watch Philadelphia Eagles minicamp and training camp practices.
This enabled Ferraro to develop a friendship with various Eagles coaches, including offensive coordinator Brad Childress. Ferraro, who was at Rutgers from 2001 t o'04, obviously made an impression.

Shortly after Childress was named coach, he selected Ferraro to be his special teams coordinator. Ferraro has 24 seasons of coaching to his credit but only last year did he deal with special teams, having served as the special teams assistant and assistant strength and conditioning coach for Carolina. That also marked his first year in the NFL.

"It's a tremendous challenge," Ferraro said of his latest assignment. "I've been fortunate in that I've had some defensive coordinator jobs at some different schools. But certainly you're in the NFL, you're in charge of a unit. Basically, you touch almost everybody on the team. It's a great challenge, and I'm excited about it again because of the attitude of these players."I had a great situation down there with Coach [John Fox] and [special teams coach] Danny Crossman," he said. "I learned a ton while I was down there, and I brought a lot of that here. But I also brought some of my own ideas after being in the league and seeing some things that some other teams did. You're always looking: What can you do better, what can you improve on?"


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TWO-DEEPS

(Starter listed first, backup second)

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{82} Troy Williamson

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{89} Travis Taylor

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{5} Chris Kluwe

{8} Ryan Longwell

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{8} Ryan Longwell

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HOLDER

{5} Chris Kluwe

{14} Brad Johnson

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{48} Cullen Loeffler

{45} Richard Owens


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