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ST Coordinator John Bonamego rapid repairs to LA Rams
The LA Rams hired new ST Coordinator John Bonamego to restore special teams' ranking to the NFL's top ten. But, where must he start?
ramblinfan.com
Bret Stuter
The LA Rams hired new ST Coordinator John Bonamego to restore special teams’ ranking to the NFL’s top ten. But, where must he start?
The LA Rams, like all NFL Teams, organize the team under three separate banners: Offense, Defense, and Special teams. The offense is the easiest to track. Measuring an NFL offense involves direct statistics, or yards gained and points scored. In other words, move the ball, and score. Run the ball, pass the ball, score. Pretty straightforward.
The defense is measured in an indirect fashion. Its ultimate success is measured by how effectively it stops opposing offenses from moving the ball and from scoring. Since the defense is the antithesis of the offense, it is tracked with a different set of statistics. That creates a bit of subjectivity to the process.
Special special teams
Finally, the team has special teams, which is the professional football category of “all other”. And that is what makes an effort to fix the ranking of the special teams unit on any team so difficult. It is not a homogenous unit, but rather has up to eight separate objectives.
All of this is extremely important to LA Rams new special teams coordinator John Bonamego. After all, he is the only new coordinator who must do more than reformulate how the LA Rams do things. He must reverse the trend of a declining trend among all of the LA Rams’ various special teams’ functions. Unfortunately, the “all other” category of special teams play makes that a difficult task even in a normal season, let alone a year when social distancing requirements prohibit NFL coaches to have direct contact with players.
Refurbish special teams play
The Rams have a history of solid special teams’ play, thanks to former special teams’ coordinator John Fassel. But that performance atop the NFL had declined over the past several seasons. That created a window of opportunity for former Rams special teams coordinator John Fassel to sign on with the Dallas Cowboys and join their new head coach Mike McCarthy in refurbishing the Cowboys horrific special teams play.
That defection was soon followed by assistant special teams coach Matt Daniels following Fassel to the Dallas Cowboys. The Cowboys went to the LA Rams’ well one more time in luring veteran kicker Greg Zuerlein away from the Rams as well. The loss of the special team’s coaching staff, as well as long-time kicker Zuerlein, may seem like a setback to some. But the three vacancies actually afford the Rams a strong chance of reversing the decline this year.
Expert mechanic Bonamego
The Rams brought in a special teams expert in John Bonamego. The LA Rams need to elevate the play of many aspects of the special teams’ performance. Fortunately, John Bonamego has a solid history of rapidly repairing the special teams play in the NFL. After all, he’s served as the special teams’ coordinator for the Green Bay Packers (2003-2005), New Orleans Saints (2006-2007), Miami Dolphins (2008-201010), the Jacksonville Jaguars in 2012, and finally with the Detroit Lions special teams coordinator (2013-2014). After serving as head coach for Central Michigan University for four seasons, he returned to the Detroit Lions once more for 2019.
Bonamego fixes special teams by focusing on the oft-overlooked aspects of special teams. Coffin kicking for punters, touchbacks on kickoffs, and constant speed and determination for coverages. It’s a simple enough strategy. But in the modern era of deceit and trickery, simply playing the odds is the right choice sometimes. In the end, it’s a KISS philosophy – Keep It Simple, Stupid! So what’s in this so simple planning?
What’s going on, John?
Special teams’ success is all about kicking the ball where the other team cannot set up a return, or returning the ball further than the default spot of the 25-yard line.
For the punting team, the goal is to punt the ball within the opponent’s 20-yard line, which is known as a coffin-kick. The punting team also strives to get the longest punts with the highest hang time, the amount of time a kicked ball remains in the air. Finally, the punting team attempts to cover punts effectively by defending opponents’ attempts to return a punt for positive yards.
For a punt return team, the most elusive goal is to block the opponent’s punt. If the punt is away, then the punt return team’s goal is to average the most yards in returning the punt, in scoring on punt returns, and in generating the shortest net punting average – or the distance from the previous play’s line of scrimmage to the new line of scrimmage.
Just for kicks?
For the kicking team, the team measures its success in net kicking yards. Unlike a punter who can punt the ball out of bounds, a kicker must ensure the ball remains within the field of play. A touchback, kicking the ball out of the end zone or into a receiver’s arms who downs the ball in the end zone, When that occurs, the ball is placed at the 25-yard line. While touchbacks are very good, a kicking team’s ultimate goal is to cover well enough that the opponent’s offense starts deep in their own territory.
For the kick return team, the team measures success by the ability to secure the ball, return the ball beyond the 25-yard line, and score. Unfortunately, the success rate of a kick return team is not as effective as it had been in the past, simply because touchbacks result in a favorable placement of the ball. But kicking teams had since adjusted and have begun to arch the ball higher, trying to land the ball on or about the five-yard line. With the right trajectory, the ball comes down just as the coverage does, and the ball is spotted behind the 25-yard line.
What about going for three points?
Nothing breaks the spirits of a football team harder than a game-winning drive to set up a field goal, only to have that field-goal fail in the closing moments of the game. And with the LA Rams falling to the 28th-ranked team in the NFL on field goal accuracy, the Rams needed to make some improvements. Coincidentally, the Rams two special teams coaches and field goal kicker Greg Zuerlein defected to the Dallas Cowboys. Will the Rams recover?
After all, the plunge of the Rams from a Super Bowl competitor to an NFL team that failed to make the playoffs cannot be attributed to the offensive line nor the defense alone. It was the plummet of the team’s field goal performance. And there is the greatest challenge for Bonamego in 2020. Can he fix the field goal unit? First, we need to determine what that fix looks like.
Improvement plan
For the field goal team, the team measures its success by field goal accuracy. And that is where the Rams failed miserably in 2019. 72.7 percent accuracy is an abysmal rate, no matter which season it occurs. It just happened to occur on a season where the Rams needed special teams to contribute. So the goal for 2020 is simple enough. the team needs to improve field goal accuracy by 10 percentage points, or to 82 percent. That means instead of making just 24 of 33 attempts, the team must make at least 27 field goals. That just three more.
For defending field goal attempts, the team’s ultimate goal is to block the field goal. But even if that does not occur, simply getting near to the kicker or disrupting the timing of the snapper, holder, and the kicker is enough. Whatever it takes to create a miss by the opposing team. While this is a difficult element of special teams, Bonamego is savvy enough to have a trick or two up his sleeve.
Here come the reinforcements
So now we have the plan, but what of the players? Well, I have some great news. Here is where this gets fun. Bonamego was not silent as the Rams went about adding personnel to the roster this offseason. That was not only new field goal kickers but a host of players signed after the draft with amazing upside in both the return and coverage games.
But since we know that your thoughts are about improving the Rams’ ability to score the sure-three points, it’s as good a place as any to start.
View: https://twitter.com/RamsNFL/status/1249784258299744256?s=20
Kick around the kicker talk
Let’s discuss those field goal kickers. The Rams added three: One from the college ranks, one from the CFL, and the third from the XFL. From college, the Rams added Sam Sloman, a graduating senior from the University of Miami (Ohio). Sloman’s accuracy was 86.7 percent on field goals his senior season, and 97.1 percent accurate on extra points. The team added XFL kicker Austin MacGinnis, who boasted a 79.1 percent accuracy while kicking at the University of Kentucky.
But the guy most fans get excited about is former CFL kicker Lirim Hajrullahu. He booted 41 out of 49 kicks from the 40-49 yard range (83.7 percent accuracy) and 14 out of 16 from the 50+ yard range (87.5 percent accuracy). The CFL listed him both as a kicker and as a punter, and his accuracy never fell below 80 percent in any CFL season. Getting a kicker who can also punt the ball is a tough combination to walk away from.
Punt the thing
Of course, very little needs to be done to improve the Rams punting game. That is thanks to the LA Rams All-Pro punter Johnny Hekker, who is a sniper with those long booming punts. And he has earned the All-Pro designation four years running. So can Hekker improve his game under Bonamego’s tutelage?
View: https://twitter.com/specialteamspod/status/1265451681501806594?s=20
Perhaps. After all, there are gross punting yards, and then there are net yards which factor in punt returns. So if there is an area to improve, it would be getting more coffin kicks to go out of bounds inside the 20-yard line. A minor matter, but it could reap huge benefits for the team in the end.
Coverage Cavalry
So the only thing left the young talented players hoping to make the LA Rams 2020 roster via the special teams’ route. And the list of the 22 players signed to the team vying for the limited roster spots is very impressive. Take your time and read through the small speedsters who can run the ball back for nearly a 30-yard average, the big bodies who will fight at the line of scrimmage for a position, or the fast big thumpers who can get down the field quickly and deliver a bone-shaking tackle in coverage.
Bonamego has a fine eye for talent, and it truly showed in the players selected by the team this year. Better still, he made his point when it came to player signings after the NFL Draft. Look for some rapid repairs to the LA Rams special teams play, folks. And that could be just enough to get the Rams back into the NFL playoffs in 2020.
