The Untold Story of the NFL’s Most Mysterious Coaching Role Few Ever Notice

Here’s something that caught my eye recently—a question from a sharp reader named LLCHESTY that got me thinking hard. They asked, with all the coaching staff expansions we’ve seen lately, why don’t more NFL teams have a dedicated kicking coach? It’s a fascinating point, especially now that Rich Bisaccia has stepped down as the Packers’ special teams coordinator. The kicking game is often razor-thin, where a single 42-yard field goal can tilt the whole season’s fortunes. Yet, when you peek behind the curtain, true kicking specialists are about as rare as a unicorn on an NFL sideline. Coaches tend to come from roles covering linebackers, receivers, or defensive backs, not the kickers themselves. I dug deep into the 2025 season rosters and uncovered that only a handful of NFL coaches actually have a direct kicking background—four, to be exact—including some connected to the always intriguing Harbaugh coaching tree. In a sport where every point matters, it seems odd that investing in kicking experts hasn’t become standard practice. Stick around, because we’re unpacking the scarcity of kicking coaches in the NFL and what it means for the teams—and fans—who count on those crucial field goals. LEARN MORE

Shoutout to LLCHESTY, who asked an interesting question in the comment section of a previous article covering some potential special teams coordinator candidates to replace Rich Bisaccia, now that he’s left his post with the Green Bay Packers:

Hey Justis, do you know if any teams use a kicking coach? With the expansion of coaching staffs it’s kind of surprising they all don’t.

Well, let’s try to answer that today.

The Washington Post already tackled this subject in an article that they wrote in 2024, which included this from then-former long-time special teams coach Kevin O’Dea, who spent north of two decades in the league before resurfacing as the New York Jets’ assistant special teams coach in 2025:

“When you think about it, those were like $40 [million] to $50 million kicks,” said O’Dea, who last coached in the NFL in 2018. He was factoring in all of those coaching salaries but probably underselling the bump in revenue and future ticket sales from an unexpected playoff appearance. “Some of these staffs have 30 coaches now, and we’ve got two or three linebackers coaches and two quarterbacks coaches, but there aren’t many true kicking coaches in the league. How many games come down to a 42-yard field goal? But when you ask people if they are interested in hiring a kicking consultant, it always comes down to the cha-ching. No one wants to spend for it.”

O’Dea might know what he’s talking about, as the Jets led the NFL in special teams DVOA last season, in what was really just a two-team race between them and the Seattle Seahawks.

As I’ve stated previously here at APC, few coaches in the league really want to reinvent a kicker from the ground up. They’ll give notes on strike points (basically what amounts to a “you missed that one” as far as feedback goes) and trajectory (“that one could have been blocked”), but there aren’t many true specialist coaches in the league as much as there are guys with stopwatches. Because of that, it’s common for kickers to have their own kicking coaches (which they pay for), and they receive feedback from them weekly.

Here’s what the Washington Post had to say about this phenomenon:

Some special teams coordinators feel threatened by their presence, believing they should be the expert on kicking even if their background is more on coverages and X’s and O’s. And some kickers themselves can be skeptical of outside voices; they work in the offseason with their personal gurus, in some cases since middle school. Problem is, those gurus aren’t on the sideline to help them in real time on game day.

Now it’s time to answer the question: How few of these kicking specialists are there around the league?

I tried my best to find the playing backgrounds of everyone involved with NFL special teams, at a coaching level, for the 2025 season. I was able to find all but a couple, so this data is pretty sturdy. The vast majority of people working in the kicking game in the pros were either linebackers, edge defenders, tight ends, defensive backs or receivers. Those are the non-kicking battery positions that play the most on special teams.

For example, here’s how the Packers’ special teams snaps broke down by position in 2025:

Defensive back: 1,098 snaps
Off-ball linebacker: 946
Edge defender: 537
Offensive line: 521 (almost exclusively on field goal protection)
Receiver: 332 (I’m including Bo Melton as a receiver, sue me)
Interior defensive linemen: 328
Running backs: 259
Tight ends: 171
Kicker: 162
Punter: 126
Long snapper: 126

These numbers generally hold up across the league, but it is worth noting that Green Bay uses its offensive players a whole lot less than other teams in the NFL. For example, the Seahawks had a fullback named Brady Russell who played 396 snaps for the team, damn near as many as the Packers’ running back and tight end rooms combined (430) in 2025. You’re gonna be shocked, but the offensive head coach doesn’t want to use his players much in the kicking game, outside of Melton (who was listed as a cornerback this year). While Savion Williams returned kicks, he played the 31st-most snaps on special teams for Green Bay in 2025. Romeo Doubs, who settled in as a punt returner for the team, was ranked 37th. Gameday rosters are limited to just 48 players, for perspective.

As far as I could tell, there are only four coaches who have a kicker, punter or long snapper background in the entire special teams coaching apparatus in the NFL, fewer than the combined number of offensive linemen (who now only play on field goal protection after the dynamic kickoff eliminated their need to play on kickoff return) and quarterbacks (who don’t play special teams now that punters are holders in the kicking game) in similar positions.

Those four coaches are Darrin Simmons, Randy Brown, Randy’s son Tyler Brown and Chris Gould.

Simmons is the assistant head coach and special teams coordinator of the Cincinnati Bengals, a position he’s held since 2020. He has been the Bengals’ special teams coordinator since 2003 and was a punter at the college level, earning junior college All-American and All-Big Eight honors.

Randy Brown is a former college kicker who currently has the title of senior special teams coach with the Baltimore Ravens and got his start there in 2008 as a “kicking consultant.” He joined Baltimore from Philadelphia, where his time overlapped with special teams coordinator John Harbaugh, who was hired to be the Ravens’ head coach in 2008. Brown apparently didn’t follow Harbaugh to New York, based on the Giants’ full staff announcement.

Randy’s son, Tyler, was a punter in college and got his first crack in the NFL in 2021 as a quality control coach of his father’s former team, the Eagles. He’s been serving as a special teams assistant for the team since 2023.

For what it’s worth, both Browns have done kicker consulting work in the past, outside of the structure of college or NFL staffs.

Gould coaches for John Harbaugh’s brother, Jim, with the Los Angeles Chargers, as their assistant special teams coach. For what it’s worth, the Harbaughs are a part of three of these four coaches’ journeys, as Tyler Brown also was on Jim’s staff at the University of Michigan.

Gould is the brother of 2006 first-team All-Pro kicker Robbie Gould, and Chris kicked for the University of Virginia. After three years of arena football, Chris decided to get into the coaching world. Gould’s career actually overlapped with Green Bay kicker Brandon McManus when they were together in Denver from 2015 to 2021. Chris was first hired to be a coaching assistant in 2015 before being promoted to assistant special teams coach in 2017. His contract expired after the 2021 season, and he left for Los Angeles that offseason.

This is all to say that there aren’t many place-kicking or punting specialists in the league. Four guys in the NFL have a background in that, and three have come from the Harbaugh tree, the only one that seems to care about the subject matter. On the coordinator level, there’s just one guy, Darrin Simmons, who has not been available on the market since the Bengals hired him to be special teams coordinator in 2003. We’re still waiting on a long snapper to break the coaching barrier.