Pride of Detroit
The Detroit Lions are going to have some company.
The Lions fired offensive coordinator John Morton about a week ago, and their search for his successor is well underway. There are four known candidates for the job right now, but there are likely a lot more who have either been contacted or outright interviewed already.
But whoever Detroit’s primary target may be, the Lions are going to have to fend off nearly a third of the league to get them. That’s because we’re entering near-unprecedented territory with the amount of head coaching positions now available. After Mike Tomlin stepped down from the Pittsburgh Steelers on Tuesday, there are now NINE coaching vacancies in the NFL.
And while there’s a chance these nine teams keep their current offensive coordinator around, they are far more likely to bring in a new person to lead their offense. Here are the nine coaching vacancies right now:
On top of that, four teams have already fired their offensive coordinators:
That’s a total of 13 teams—or over 40% of the league—that could be looking for a new offensive coordinator, and that’s not even including the Philadelphia Eagles, who are not expected to retain theirs.
UPDATE: The Eagles have indeed fired OC Kevin Patullo.
All of that is to say that the Lions are going to have to fight off plenty of teams looking to fill a ton of coaching vacancies. And for candidates like Mike McDaniel, they may be vying for both head coaching and offensive coordinator positions.
There is some good news, though. The Lions have had a head start on many of these teams. Teams looking for head coaches may be weeks away from even beginning their offensive coordinator search. Additionally, the Lions have a pretty attractive situation for an offensive coordinator. The pantry is filled with offensive weapons at every position, and they have an established quarterback that won’t need a ton of babying to get the offense rolling. The Lions organization also has a very strong reputation, and they have already been a springboard for promotions across the league.
Still, the next month is going to be very competitive as nearly half the league will be searching for the brightest offensive minds in football, and the Lions are going to have to navigate it cunningly if they want to land the best guy.
