IRVING, Texas – Former Cowboys assistant special teams coach Chris Boniol has accepted the same position with the Oakland Raiders, the club announced Thursday.
Boniol spent four years with the Dallas coaching staff, starting in 2010 when he was brought in to help place kicker David Buehler. He and the Cowboys mutually agreed to his departure following the 2013 season. He was also the club's kicker from 1994-96, helping the team to its Super Bowl XXX championship.
Under Boniol's guidance, Cowboys kicker Dan Bailey achieved the second and third-best single season field goal percentages in team history. Bailey converted 93.5 percent of his field goals in 2012 and 93.3 percent in 2013. The only Dallas kicker with a better single season percentage is Boniol himself, who hit 27-of-28 field goals in 1995 for a mark of 96.4 percent.
In Oakland, Boniol will assume a similar role and will have the opportunity to work with longtime Raiders kicker Sebastian Janikowski. [embedded_ad]
The Cowboys' assistant special teams coach position, which Boniol vacated, is still unfilled as of this point. It looked for certain the team would hire Carlos Polk, a former colleague of special teams coordinator Rich Bisaccia. Before the Cowboys finalized that deal, however, Polk accepted a position with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers.
Boniol played six total NFL seasons – three with Dallas, two with Philadelphia and one with Chicago. He converted 128 of 163 field goal attempts. Other than his single season percentage mark, Boniol shares the Cowboys record for most field goals in a single game with seven. His 27-straight converted field goals in 1996 are also a franchise record.
