Detroit Lions hire John Bonamego as their new special teams coordinator

The Detroit Lions finally have themselves a new special teams coordinator. As rumors suggested earlier in the week, the Lions had interest in re-hiring former Central Michigan head coach John Bonamego as their next coordinator. On Tuesday afternoon, the team made it official:

This is Bonamego’s second run with the Lions as their special teams coordinator. Back in 2013-14 he served that role, which helped catapult him to the head coaching job at CMU. Unfortunately, he was fired from that job in 2018 after a 1-11 season with the Chippewa.

According to reports earlier in the week, Bonamego was being pursued by a couple other NFC North teams—the Vikings and Packers. However, considering Bonamego has spent the last six years working within the state of Michigan, it’s obvious the Lions had a leg up here.

Bonamego takes over for Joe Marciano, who was let go in the middle of the 2018 season after the Lions struggled in kick coverage and were committing way too many penalties during special teams play. This will be Bonamego’s 17th season as a coach in the NFL.