There has been so much chatter about how brilliant Ben Johnson is, and if the offense has another great year, he is probably gone. On the other side of the ball, Aaron Glenn could be a good season away from a HC opportunity. My question is, how much credit does Dan get for the offense and defense? We saw the offense improve dramatically after he took over in his first year. Can we expect that the offense and/or defense will keep humming along if we lose Ben/Glenn? Or will it be a major set back because Dan delegates so much control to the coordinators?
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Dan seems to walk the fine line between control and delegation perfectly. He knows whats going on - he knows fine details. Yet he gives his coordinators alot of autonomy. I’m kind of fascinated about how he does that. Its an art and he has it down. He gets involved when he needs to – but our coordinators don’t feel threatened by him.
Dan gets full credit for what’s happening. He wants it his way, but knows talent when he sees it, picks talented people who share his vision, and cuts the cord while not letting bad things fester when he needs to. He sets the tone, has the vision, and gets people who can execute. This is why he’s one of the best head coaches in the league.
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I don’t think Mike Tomlin has ever called plays in Pittsburgh.
Tomlin has had several different OCs and DCs.
And… he has never had a losing season in 16 years.
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@Phunnypharm steelers are so damn good with their consistency spanning decades. I remember a stretch where they were losing a pro bowl defender basically every offseason yet kept chugging away.
true.
But I remember a year that the Steelers had pretty poor QB play, a pretty poor QB play (11 TDs, 14 INTs), a poor O-line, and their best edge rusher missed almost 1/2 the season…
and they were over .500 record.
That was way back… in 2022… 
After Campbell relieved Anthony Lynn of his playcalling duties, I gained a lot of respect for his offensive acumen. He understood their strengths and played to them. That, to me, is the sign of a good/great coach.
I believe because of MCDC, and the OLine, the Lions’ offense will continue to be prolific.
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Honestly I kinda hope we lose both AG and Ben Johnson because that would most likely mean we had some serious success in the playoffs. For example, the Eagles lost both coordinators this offseason after they almost won the super bowl last year.
If this team accomplishes what we all hope it does, then we will lose good coaches, just the nature of the sport.
Football is not rocket science, as Lions fans know all too well.
There will be coaching turnover, whether things go well or whether they go sideways.
It’s worth noting that two coaches were fired midstream over the last two years, first an OC and then a DB coach and both led to spurts of success on the field. If the case of Aubrey Pleasant, Dan took serious heat for that one, being accused of scapegoating him to get himself (and Glenn even moreso) off the hotseat. Well, we saw how that turned out - a clear turnaround on defense.
In both cases, Dan proved right.
Another thing they seem to have right is to invest in high-IQ players. Sutton is regarded as one of those and he’ll be around for at least a couple of seasons so he can help implement the scheme with any new players coming on board. The brass seems to have a great plan, both for this season and the years to come.
Seems to me the Lions are building the kind of foundation that should be able overcome the inevitable turnover in their coaching staff. And they should be able to attract top coaching talent going forward, unless they somehow fall flat on their faces. I see no indication of that at this point in time. Wins and losses will tell the tale.
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Good point, I think so too. Campbell has a ton of connections around the league over the past 20+ years as a player and coach. Seems to be very well respected and I think he will be able to either promote guys or hire qualified coaches to replace anyone who leaves.
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Yep - I think he’s three steps ahead of us. He has an OC-in-waiting and a DC-in-waiting on the staff now, and I think he’ll get a chance to observe them up close. There may be second and thirds after them on the staff right now. If he likes what he sees, he’ll promote from within. If not he’ll reach out like he did this past year. I can’t remember ever feeling that our assistants were chosen with a long term plan in place, it was more like whack-a-mole replacements. Maybe I’m giving him more credit than he deserves, but I don’t think so.
But I have an inkling that Ben Johnson loves what he’s doing and may stay a few more years.
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Its always fascinating to me how many times an action has an opposite reaction. One example is latch key kids who were barely supervised becoming helicopter parents. In the NFL teams like to get coaches from a different “flavor” than their last head coach. With Dan we have a coach that is respected all around the league and is 2 phone calls away from any player or coach in the NFL. When I say “2 phone calls” I mean that Dan may not have the guys number, but he does have the number of a guy that has the number. That was not Matt Patricia. For as long as Matt Patricia was in the NFL, he had surprisingly few contacts in the NFL and didn’t have respect in NFL circles. One red flag was the fact that noone from New England followed him to Detroit. Another red flag was the number of college coaches he had to hire to fill spots. The college ranks are full of talent in coaching. However, if you look closer at Patricia’s staff, it paints a picture of a guy who simply wasn’t respected in NFL circles. Not a guy who was trying to bring up new talent.
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Ben would be wise waiting for the right job with the right QB.
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He turned down big money this offseason, by all accounts. I mean, we don’t know how serious teams were about hiring him as a HC. So there’s an asterisk there.
But if the Lions offense is as good or better this year, he’ll get more interviews with tens of millions of dollars on the table. He seems like a loyal dude, but those chances only come around so often in the coaching world. I think this will likely be his last go around in DET.
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Good points, although somehow me managed to hire Hank Fraley and Ben Johnson. Maybe we should give Darrel Bevell credit for those hires instead so we can sleep better at night.
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I have been pleasantly surprised by Dan’s approach to the offense. That’s what wins in today’s NFL, those years in New Orleans did him good. I also like that we’ve zagged when everyone else zigged, but we’ve done it in a reality creative way. A line-up-and-smash-em run game wouldn’t work as well in today’s NFL, but our creativity makes it very, very hard to stop.
I also think he quickly recognized Ben’s acumen, and I think he knows his mathematical, problem-solving background has a lot to do with it. We’ve all watched the Ben Johnson videos this offseason, he breaks offense down into problems to be solved and he’s very good at solving them. It’s almost like game theory stuff.
I think Dan recognizes the advantages of this approach to running an offense, which is why he promoted Tanner Engstrand, who has a similar background to Ben. He’s not a math major like Ben was, he’s an economics guy, but both were college QBs. And Engstrand’s already been a highly successful OC, although at a very low level (San Diego U).
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Dan’s threshold for risk tolerance has to be a dream for an OC.
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Bevell was absolutely the reason Ben Johnson was recruited here. He was the one who knew him from the past. But fatty Matty did promote him once he was here. I can sleep though!
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I still have night terrors where Patricia is still the coach!
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Let’s discuss this out in the open. Fraley was at UCLA when he got the call from Patricia. It was his opportunity to get back to the NFL. The 2023 version of Hank Fraley would be willing to entertain a call from Dan Campbell, but not Matt Patricia. I like Fraley and I am happy he is our OL coach. But he took the Lions job under Patricia because of circumstances. If he had other options in the NFL, he would have taken them.
Ben Johnson was a real position coach…under Dan Campbell in Miami. He came to the Lions as an “offensive quality control coach.” It was a step backwards in his career. That tells you that Ben did not have better options, so he took what he could get. It doesn’t make Ben a bad coach. It just shows the pattern. Ben was an untapped talent that shows how powerful connections are. He had spent his entire NFL existence in Miami.
And let’s continue the conversation. Darrell Bevel was completely out of the NFL when Patricia called him. Right, wrong or otherwise…people in NFL circles are not beating his door down to get him as their OC. His next gig was working for a college HC (Urban Meyer). And after that he has had to take a step backwards to remain in the NFL. That doesn’t speak to his talent, but it does speak to how NFL circles view him and what his opportunities were at the time Patricia called him.
I will wrap this post up talking about Duce Staley. Dan Campbell has so much respect that Duce was willing to make a lateral move to work for him. Frank Reich is so respected that Duce made another lateral move to go work for frank. There are other factors involved in both moves, but let’s just keep it simple and straight forward for now. In an arms race between guys like Dan Campbell and Frank Reich, a guy like Matt Patricia doesn’t stand a chance. No coach with multiple options like Dan Campbell and Frank Reich would ever choose to work for Matt Patricia.
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Great question man
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