LA Rams hire new Special Teams Coordinator John Bonamego

Who Is John Bonamego?

The first step is to make some introductions.  John Bonamego is NOT a millennial, but rather is a baby boomer coach born on August 14, 1963.  Bonamego has a long and storied career in football.
While he earned plenty of recognition in collegiate coaching, his forte’ in the NFL is special teams. He was assistant special teams coach for the Jacksonville Jaguars from 1999-2001, where he was the understudy to legendary NFL special teams coach Frank Gans. He took over Gans in 2002, where the special teams unit ranked third best in the NFL.

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He then took on the Special Teams Coordinator role for the Green Bay Packers, serving from 2003 to 2005. In 2004, his unit made four game-winning field goals, the most by any team since the NFL-AFL merger.

He then took over in 2006 for the New Orleans Saints as special teams coordinator, where he helped the Saints in their post-Katrina era.

His next career stop occurred with the Miami Dolphins, where he served as their special team coordinator from 2008 through 2011.  At Miami, Bonamego was instrumental in developing young talented players, culminating in Ted Ginn Jr.’s two return touchdowns in a single game.

He later returned to the New Orleans Saints as assistant special teams coach, the team which finished the season 13-3. He followed that by returning to the Jacksonville Jaguars as their special team coordinator.  There, he helped develop rookie punter Bryan Anger set an NFL record punting average of 47.8 gross yards per punt and 40.8 net yards per punt.

He then took the special team coordinator role with the Detroit Lions from 2013 through 2014. Once more, he coached a young player to lead the league.  On this occasion, he helped Lions’ punter Sam Martin to lead the NFL in punting average for two seasons, with 40.4 and 40.1 yards per punt respectively.  Now? He’s coming off a rather impressive stint with the Detroit Lions.