Durango High School football has been known for producing offensive line talent over the last few years, and one of Durango’s former football players is producing offensive linemen good enough to be in the Super Bowl.
John Benton, a 1982 graduate of Durango High School, will be on the sideline of Super Bowl 60 in San Francisco on Sunday as the Seattle Seahawks’ offensive line coach. With over 20 years of experience on National Football League sidelines, Benton will get his second chance to be a part of a Super Bowl-winning team as his Seahawks take on the New England Patriots for the Lombardi Trophy.
“It’s been pretty incredible,” Benton said. “It’s a little bit surreal. You’ve watched the game from afar when you were a kid and everything. Then to be in it, it’s starting to strike home now.”
Benton has worked as an offense line coach for eight NFL teams, coaching All-Pro players and helping teams’ offenses become elite. His football journey, however, begins in Durango, playing for the Emory E. Smiley Junior High School team and then the Durango Demons.
Growing up on a ranch south of town, Benton reflects fondly on growing up in Durango. It was big enough for him for there always to be something to do, but small enough that he could play football, basketball and still have enough time to do his chores on the ranch.
“From a work ethic standpoint, it (growing up in Durango) has helped me as much as anything,” Benton said. “Growing up on the ranch out there, it never seemed like I was doing anything more. Durango is a place you do grow up grounded. You knew families, you knew people, and you couldn’t get into too much trouble.”
Benton was trouble for opposing teams in high school and was good enough to go play football at Colorado State University. He was a four-year starter on the offensive line for the Rams, but he went to Colorado State because he wanted to be an engineer.
It wasn’t until his junior year that he decided to switch his major and go all-in on coaching. Benton credits his position coach at Colorado State with falling in love with the game enough to get into coaching.
After Benton graduated, he became a graduate assistant for the Rams and was the offensive line coach for his alma mater from 1995-2002. He made the jump to the NFL with the St. Louis Rams in 2003. Steve Fairchild, another coach at Colorado State when Benton was there, introduced Benton to St. Louis’ head coach, Mike Martz, who hired Benton to be St. Louis’ offensive line coach.
“I’d been coaching in college football for about 15 years, and I felt like I knew what I was doing,” Benton said. “I got to the NFL and realized I really didn’t know football at all. It was a big jump from a learning curve standpoint, that type of thing. Thankfully, I was able to respond quickly enough to stay in.”
College linemen are just as big, or even bigger, than NFL linemen. Benton said the difference is above the shoulders with NFL linemen’s mentality. There’s a certain commitment to technique, training and staying healthy with the pros that isn’t always there with talented college players.
Benton certainly was a quick learner and has been a great teacher at the NFL level. He’s learned more technically in his two-plus decades in the NFL. But, he’s learned his approach is key. It’s easy as a young coach to yell, but Benton has matured to know that getting the players’ buy-in and understanding is way more positive.
Although Benton’s teams have had success running the ball and protecting the quarterback, it hasn’t been easy for him to stay in the same place. His longest stint was from 2006-2013 with the Houston Texans. Position coaches in the NFL can do a great job, but if the team isn’t doing well and the head coach is fired, that usually means the new head coach will bring in a whole new staff. This has made Benton feel like an independent contractor at times, knowing his film will always be his resume.
“It can be difficult to move around … it’s really difficult on your family,” Benton said. “The first thing pops to mind is that I have two daughters, and they struggle with telling you what their hometown is. One says it’s Texas, and one says it’s Florida. They’ve got to uproot, and your wife has to find new doctors and friends. That’s where you get those pangs of guilt from.”
After a lot of moving, it seems like Benton might have a long-term spot in Seattle. He got the job after working for the New Orleans Saints in 2024 under Dennis Allen. After Allen was fired, Benton had to find a new team. Back when he was in Houston, Benton worked for Gary Kubiak and ended up reconnecting with Kubiak’s son, Klint, in New Orleans, when Klint was the offensive coordinator. Klint moved on to the Seahawks in 2025, and Benton followed him.
It’s been a successful move for Benton. The Seahawks outperformed preseason expectations, with the sportsbooks having Seattle’s over/under win total at 8.5 wins in the preseason. Seattle finished the regular season at 14-3 overall, won the NFC West Division and earned the No. 1 seed in the NFC playoffs.
The Seattle offense was a big reason why. Behind Benton’s offensive line, quarterback Sam Darnold finished fifth in the league with 4,048 passing yards, seventh with a 67.7 completion percentage and tied-ninth with 25 touchdowns. Darnold is a very intelligent player, and the two of them work closely together on pass protection, according to Benton.
Running back Kenneth Walker had a 1,000-yard rushing season for the Seahawks, and wide receiver Jaxon Smith-Njigba led the NFL with 1,793 receiving yards. Under Benton’s guidance, the Seattle offensive line finished the regular season top 10 in pressure rate allowed, no blitz pressure rate allowed and time to throw for the quarterback.
“We’re probably maybe a little more balanced team, even on offense, we’re maybe a little more dangerous running and throwing the ball where you really have to decide if you want to fully take away one and give us the other,” Benton said. “Our whole team’s youth does become an advantage there. It’s hard to describe, but there is an energy and exuberance they play with that has shown up through the playoffs.”
This will be Benton’s second Super Bowl experience after he the offensive line coach for the San Francisco 49ers team that lost to the Kansas Chiefs in Super Bowl 54. Benton thinks both the 49ers offensive line and this Seahawks offensive line were very athletic, but the 49ers line was a more veteran group.
A Super Bowl win would be a fantastic achievement for Benton in a place he didn’t know much about. He knew Seattle had a great fan base when he was an opposing coach, but he’s felt it at another level being a part of the team.
“Anytime you make it this far, if you said you expected it, you’d be a liar,” Benton said. “One of the reasons coming here was appealing was they were one game out of the playoffs last year with a younger team, so we kind of knew the expectation was to make the postseason. You hope you can keep riding it out from there, but it’s all gravy at this point.”