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Dolphins Hire Five Coaches
January 28, 2008

The Miami Dolphins today named John Bonamego as their special teams coordinator, George DeLeone as their tight ends coach, David Puloka as assistant strength and conditioning coach, Jim Reid as outside linebackers coach and Steve Bush as offensive quality control coach.

Bonamgeo will be embarking on his 21st season in the coaching profession, the last nine of which have been spent in the NFL. Most recently, he was the special teams coach with the New Orleans Saints for the past two years. Prior to that, he tutored the special teams unit with the Green Bay Packers from 2003-05. He got his start in the NFL as assistant special teams coach with the Jacksonville Jaguars in 1999, a spot he held for three seasons before being promoted to special teams coordinator in 2002. In Bonamego's nine NFL seasons, the teams with which he has coached have won four divisional titles and advanced to two conference championship games. Prior to starting his NFL stint, Bonamego held assistant posts at Maine (1988-91), Lehigh (1992) and Army (1993-98). In 1987, he also coached at Mt. Pleasant (Mich.) High School and was a player-coach in Europe with the Verona (Italy) Redskins. A wide receiver and quarterback at Central Michigan, Bonamego earned his degree in health and fitness from the school in 1987. He earned his master's in physical education from Maine in 1992.

DeLeone is a veteran of 37 seasons as a football coach, primarily in the collegiate ranks and in a myriad of roles. Most recently, he was the offensive coordinator at Temple University the past two seasons, while also tutoring the interior offensive linemen in 2007 and the quarterbacks in 2006. Prior to that, he was the run game coordinator/offensive line coach at the University of Mississippi in 2005. DeLeone's one year of NFL experience came in 1997 when he coached the offensive line with San Diego Chargers. A bulk of his coaching career has been spent at Syracuse, where he served as an assistant from 1985-96 and 1998-2004. During that 19-year span he served in a variety of roles including offensive line coach (1985-86, 2000-04), offensive coordinator (1987-96), defensive coordinator (1998), quarterbacks coach (1999). He also held the title of associate head coach from 1998-2004. During DeLeone's time tutoring the offensive line, five of his pupils were drafted into the NFL. In 10 years as offensive coordinator, five of his players were first-team All-America selections. In his 19 years with the Orange, the team produced 15 winning records and appeared in 13 bowl games. DeLeone began his coaching career at Southern Connecticut State in 1970 as offensive line coach. After six years in that post he was promoted to head coach in 1976 and served four years in that role. In 1980, he moved on to Rutgers as an assistant where he was the Scarlet Knights' defensive line coach (1980), defensive coordinator (1981-82) and offensive line/special teams coach (1983). He was appointed offensive coordinator at Holy Cross in 1984 and in his lone year at the school, running back Gil Fenerty rushed for 1,211 yards, a school single-season record at the time and now the third-highest figure. A native of New Haven, Conn., DeLeone earned his bachelor's degree in physical education from the University of Connecticut and his master's in education from Southern Connecticut State.

Puloka comes to the Dolphins after spending the 2007 season as the assistant strength and conditioning coach with the Atlanta Falcons. Prior to that, he held the same post at the University of Virginia from 2005-06. Puloka lettered in football and track at Holy Cross College, where he earned his degree in psychology. A product of Arlington (Mass.) High School, Puloka first started his coaching career as an assistant track coach at Stevens Tech in Hoboken, N.J. and as a strength and conditioning coach in the Austrian Football League.

For Reid, who brings with him 34 years of experience in the coaching profession, this will be his first foray into the NFL ranks. Of those 34 seasons, half were spent as a head coach, most recently at Virginia Military Institute, where he guided that program for the last two years. He also served as head coach at the University of Massachusetts from 1986-91 and at Richmond from 1995-2003. In Reid's six years at UMass, the school produced a composite record of 36-29-1 as he guided the Minutemen to three Yankee Conference titles. In 1988, he was named the Yankee Conference Coach of the Year. His nine-year run at Richmond included a pair of Atlantic 10 Conference championship and five finishes in the Top 20 in the Division I-AA ranks. He also was selected as the Atlantic 10 Coach of the Year on two occasions (1998, 2000) and was the Yankee Conference co-Coach of the Year once (1995). Prior to taking over the head spot at UMass, Reid spent the previous 13 seasons at the school as an assistant, including the first two as a graduate assistant. Following his tenure there, he spent the next three seasons as a defensive coordinator, the first two at Richmond (1992-93) and the final one at Boston College (1994). After his stint as head coach with the Spiders, Reid spent the 2004 season as an assistant at Syracuse and 2005 as an assistant at Bucknell. He earned his degree in education from the University of Maine where he was a three-year starter on the school's football team. He earned his master's degree in sports management from the University of Massachusetts.

Bush also embarks on his first NFL venture following a 26-year run as a coach at both the high school and collegiate levels. He served on a Syracuse staff headed up by Dolphins defensive coordinator Paul Pasqualoni from 2000-04, when he was the school's defensive backs coach (2000) and quarterbacks coach (2001-04). In that 2000 season, he coached cornerback Will Allen, a first-team All-Big East selection that year who went on to become a first-round draft choice of the Giants in 2001 and his currently with the Dolphins. Most recently, Bush was the head coach at West Genesee (N.Y.) High School, where this past season he guided the school to a record of 11-2 and its first New York State Class AA state title. Bush got his start in the coaching profession as a graduate assistant at Southern Connecticut State, where he served from 1982-83. He moved on to Springfield College where he was the school's defensive coordinator/secondary coach from 1984-85. That was followed by stints as defensive coordinator/linebackers coach at the University of New Haven in 1986 and defensive coordinator/secondary coach at Boston University from 1987-89. He moved on as a head coach at the high school ranks, first at Longmeadow (Mass.) High from 1990-92 and then at Manalapan (N.J.) High from 1993-99. Bush played at Southern Connecticut State, where he earned both his undergraduate and master's degrees.

...that the D-Line is THE biggest issue that needs to be fixed on this team. Barring the signing of someone like Albert Haynesworth, who I don't believe will be available once FA starts, this team won't have the horse to run a true 3-4. We've got undersized DE's for the most part, and the DT's at the top of the draft are not true NT's. I'm in complete agreement with your assessment. We need  more players along that defensive front, especially, as you said, a stud DT. The only reason they were able to play a 3-4 at times was because of Keith Traylor. Now that he's gone, it will be tough unless he is replaced by a true NT.

I've heard a lot of people, including Jim Mandich and Joe Rose, rave about Rex Hadnot. I'm not sold. If you look at the stats from Footballoutsiders.com, our mid/guard ranks for running up the middle have been below avg for the last 2 years. That spans 2 Head Coaches, 2 Offensive Coordinators, but the same O-Line coach. The one constant factor was Rex Hadnot. We added a new Center this year that was generally regarded as an upgrade on the line. All that tells me that maybe Rex Hadnot isn't the stud others are making him out to be. Now granted, stats are the end all, but some things jumped out to me. The LT stats for rushing were greatly improved, while the RT stats decreased. Well, thats obviously because of Carey moving from RT to LT, and Shelton moving over to RT. Where we should have been improved by adding Satele at C, and Hadnot moving over to RG, we basically stayed the same...below average on rushes up the middle. So...I am still not sold on Hadnot being anything more than a decent RG.

They've moved Shelton all over the place and none of those areas have been anything better than average. I say its time to cut-bait with him and try to groom someone else.

Well, with all of that babble :), I do agree with the overall thought that we need to upgrade the O-Line, especially the interior.