Bonamego, long time NFL, college coach, retiring
Longtime NFL special teams organizer and former Central Michigan head coach John Bonamego told ESPN on Friday he is retiring from coaching.Bonamego, 59, invested
19 years as an unique groups assistant or coordinator in the NFL and another 16 as a college coach, including a four-year stint as the head coach of his alma mater from 2015 to 2018. He invested last season as a senior special groups analyst at Iowa State.
“It’s been an extraordinary journey,” Bonamego told ESPN. “However [my better half] Paulette and I, we’re extremely thrilled about the next chapter of our lives.”
Bonamego spent most of his 35-year training profession as a NFL special teams organizer with the Jacksonville Jaguars two times (2002 and 2012), Green Bay Packers (2003-05), New Orleans Saints (2006-07), Miami Dolphins (2008-10), Detroit Lions twice (2013-14 and 2019) and the Los Angeles Rams (2020 ). He was a senior coaching assistant with the Rams in 2021.
6 existing NFL unique teams organizers either played or coached under Bonamego during his profession, including Atlanta’s Marquice Williams, Tennessee’s Craig Aukerman and Cleveland’s Mike Priefer.In his NFL profession
, he was also the decision-maker to choose a punt block on among the most iconic plays in New Orleans Saints history, Steve Gleason’s obstructed punt against the Atlanta Falcons in the team’s very first game back in the Superdome following Typhoon Katrina. Bonamego went to then-Saints head coach Sean Payton on Atlanta’s first punt of the game and recommended going for the block, something Payton consented to. It remains something Bonamego remembers out of all the plays he has called.” Certainly I would say that was the most likely the most significant
play,”Bonamego stated. “Without question.”Bonamego, who is moving from training to working in organization advancement for BSN, a sporting goods garments and equipment distributor, invested most of the last two decades of his profession in the NFL other than for the four seasons at CMU, where he went 22-29 from 2015 to 2018 before being let go following a 1-11 season.Bonamego took the Chippewas to 3 straight bowl games and won the MAC West in 2015.
That year, Bonamego likewise made it through tonsil cancer, working while going through radiation treatments at the University of Michigan. He was considered cancer-free in November 2015, as Central Michigan won 5 of its last 6 games to win the department. Amongst the players he coached at Central was Dallas Cowboys backup quarterback Cooper Rush.After a year as an assistant at Mount Pleasant High School, Bonamego had early-career college training stops at Maine(1988-91), Lehigh (1992) and Army(1993-98)prior to moving to the NFL as an assistant unique groups coach with the Jaguars from 1999 to 2001.