The Detroit Lions have a new special teams coordinator.
Head coach Matt Patricia has hired former Cincinnati Bengals assistant special teams coach Brayden Coombs to head up Detroit's special teams units.
Here are three things to know about Detroit's newest assistant coach hire:
1. Coombs, 33, joined the Bengals' coaching staff as an intern in 2009 and has been the team's special teams assistant for the last seven seasons.
He's also served as an offensive assistant (2012), quality control (2013-15), defensive quality control (2016-17) and offensive quality control coach (2018). Coombs worked directly under long-time Cincinnati special teams coordinator Darrin Simmons, who is one of the best special teams coordinators in the league. Coombs is considered to be a young, up-and-coming coaching prospect in the NFL.
2. Coombs comes from a good coaching pedigree. His father Kerry was a long-time high school coach in Ohio – where he coached Brayden – before moving on to be an assistant coach in college at Cincinnati and Ohio State. He's currently a secondary coach in the NFL for the Tennessee Titans.
3. Coombs was a former wide receiver, who played four years of college ball at Miami (Ohio) University. He got a degree in business, and he and his wife, Alexia, have a daughter, Harper, and two sons, Cam and KJ.
