Mike Priefer, who served as the Cleveland Browns special teams coordinator from 2019 to 2022, has been hired by Bill Belichick to serve as the UNC Tar Heels' new special teams coach per Pete Thamel of ESPN.
Priefer is a longtime coach in the NFL, having been a special teams coach in the league since 2002. His career began with the Jacksonville Jaguars as an assistant special teams coordinator, and has worked as a special teams coordinator since then. His previous stops outside of the Browns and Jaguars include the NY Giants, Kansas City Chiefs, Denver Broncos, and Minnesota Vikings.
Cleveland was his last stop, for now, with an NFL team. In his time with the Browns, he actually became the only coach to lead the team to a playoff victory in the 2020s as the team beat the Pittsburgh Steelers in the AFC Wild Card game in 2020 with him at the helm. Head coach Kevin Stefanski was positive for Covid-19 and unable to coach, so Priefer got the nod.
Belichick shoring up coaching staff with NFL coaching veteran
Priefer is the definition of a veteran NFL coach with a very specific skill set: coaching special teams. It's something that the Browns certainly struggled with in 2024 under Bubba Ventrone, who is still with the team.
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Cleveland's field goal percentage has specifically slipped since Priefer's hiring in 2019 and firing from the team after 2022. In 2019, the team had a field goal percentage of 86.2. In 2020, that sank to 79.2 percent, and in 2021, it was down to 72.7 percent - a league worst. In 2022, his final year as the team's STC, it was at 75 percent.
He was overall the leader of a fairly bad unit for Cleveland, with the special teams room consistently finishing at the bottom rung of power rankings during his time as their coach.
The Browns saw a boost after his release, making 91.9 percent of their kicks thanks to Dustin Hopkins. But, of course, Hopkins slipped up big time in 2024, making just 66.7 percent of his field goals.
Priefer grew up a Browns fan, coming onto the team with aspirations of becoming "the best special teams coordinator of all time" while with Cleveland. While that didn't come to fruition, his experience in the NFL should carry over nicely into Belichick's system at UNC. He's sure to bring a ton of NFL-level playcalling to the team, and Priefer fits perfectly into that image.