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A flag, the fans and hitting it true: Phil Dawson advises Browns rookie kicker Cade York
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- A flag, the fans and hitting it true: Phil Dawson advises Browns rookie kicker Cade York
BEREA — Phil Dawson warned Cade York that questions about his infamous flag were coming.
Dawson left Cleveland in 2012 when the Browns didn't want to invest in him in free agency and their kicking position has been erratic ever since.
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A fourth-round pick from LSU, York is determined to solidify that spot. He took the first step on May 6, when he and Dawson spent 30 to 40 minutes on the phone discussing the challenges of kicking at FirstEnergy Stadium.
"He kinda went through some of the stuff that he did, plant cleats, talked about the wind a little bit, different types of conditions," York said Friday as rookie minicamp opened at the Cross Country Mortgage Campus. "Everyone has their own style of going about things, but it was cool to pick his brain about a few things.
"He did say that people would be mentioning his flag."
Dawson installed a small flag in the southwest corner of the end zone to give him a better read on the conditions. He noticed when the wind was coming from that direction, it spelled a particularly brutal day. In 2020, Dawson told the website dawgsbynature.com that a former Secret Service sniper once told him how to calculate the wind speed by looking at the angle of the flag.
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Kicking field goals into the Dawg Pound end of the stadium has also been extremely difficult for Dawson's successors.
"He mentioned that there are going to be days that are tough. You just gotta go out there and hit a true ball," York said. "You've got to be OK with not hitting it right down the middle every time, just have confidence in what you do, and not every kick is going to be the same."
Dawson, 47, is in his first season as head football coach at Hyde Park School in Austin, Texas, about four hours away from where York played at Prosper High School in McKinney. York said Dawson is "doing his own thing," but York believes they will eventually cross paths.
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Browns coach Kevin Stefanski considered it an encouraging sign that York had already reached out to Dawson.
"I think that is great," Stefanski said. "I think Phil has been an outstanding ambassador for our team and certainly our specialists. To be able to connect with Phil and talk through FirstEnergy Stadium is an important part of it."
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York got to try out what he'd learned when he kicked at the stadium on Friday morning. But with a high of 82 degrees in Cleveland and a light breeze, conditions weren't nearly what York will face starting on Sept. 18 in the home opener against the New York Jets .
"It was pretty nice. Nicer than most games at LSU, honestly, so excited to see what it's like when it's windy," York said.
York is unchallenged and the Browns do not plan to bring in another kicker for training camp. After Chase McLaughlin struggled in the second half of last season, he and Chris Blewitt were cut two days after the draft concluded.
"I think they know my mentality and I'm a very competitive person, not only when I compete with other people, but I compete with myself," York said. "I think they want to give me a space to work on what I need to work on and I'm very thankful for that.
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"But just because there's no one here I'm competing with in the facility, that doesn't mean I'm not competing with every kicker in the country."
Stefanski said the Browns are trying to "maximize" every moment York has, but won't overwork him as they prepare for the Sept. 11 season opener at Carolina.
"You can't kick every day," Stefanski said. "What are you doing on those off times? You are studying tape with the coaches, you are looking at what you can do better and you are working on your body and those type of things. He is going to make sure every minute counts.
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"He's a naturally confident young man, which is great for that position."
That self-belief extends to another part of York's game.
"I know y'all haven't seen too many of those, but I am very confident in my kickoff abilities," he said.
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Not having competition would seemingly make it harder for York to work on the mental part of his game, but York believes he can create pressure while alone.
"You've just got to create hard situations for yourself in practice so that when you go out there on game days it's the exact same," he said. "That is definitely the hardest part of the game. It's just something you build up confidence over time and you know that even though you might have one bad kick it doesn't mean that everything else is bad. It's just something was off on that one.
"You just have to have fun with it and you know that what you're doing out there on Sundays ... I almost said Saturdays … It's literally the exact same thing you do every time it's people in the stands and a few 300-pound guys running at you."
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Some of that sounded like Dawson's mantra. York has also experienced the pressure of the Southeastern Conference, which he thinks prepared him for the league.
"On a weekly basis I was kicking in front of 104,000 people," York said. "Those were my own fans, but when we went [on the road) they were all big-time stadiums. Fans in college sometimes get crazier than fans in the NFL, I'm sure."
When they talked, York said he and Dawson got into the passion of Browns fans, with Dawson trying to prepare him for their reaction if he has a rough game.
"He definitely talked about how Cleveland can be either an amazing place to play or a hard place to play if you're not doing what you're supposed to do and how you've basically got to block it out because everyone has bad days," York said. "Even Phil had bad days. So you've got to just play to the best of your ability and not worry too much about the fans.
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"But it's also a great place to play, just like college honestly. Because Baton Rouge if I wasn't doing well, they were going to let me know."
Marla Ridenour can be reached at mridenour@thebeaconjournal.com. Read more about the Browns at www.beaconjournal.com/browns. Follow her on Twitter at www.twitter.com/MRidenourABJ.
This article originally appeared on Akron Beacon Journal: Cleveland Browns rookie Cade York seeks advice from Phil Dawson
