Pride of Detroit
Cast your vote for the Detroit Lions’ 2024 Coach of the Year.
The Detroit Lions’ 2024 coaching staff will be one for the ages. It feels like one of those years where we’ll look back in a couple decades and ask ourselves, “How the hell did they manage to have all of those coaches in one building?” From top to bottom, offense to defense, Detroit had incredibly smart and motivating players across the board. There’s a reason why two coordinators are now NFL head coaches and two position coaches are now NFL coordinators.
So there may not be a tougher Pride of Detroit award to hand out than Detroit Lions 2024 Coach of the Year. Hell, the Lions won NFL Assistant Coach of the Year and damn near won Head Coach of the Year, too.
Here are our nominations for Detroit Lions Coach of the Year. Remember to cast your ballot at the bottom of the page to determine this year’s winner.
Previous awards:
Morgan Cannon: Aaron Glenn
At the beginning of the year, Glenn had the defense playing like a top-flight unit. Then all of the injuries happened, and yet, for most of the season—the unit kept it together. Glenn, along with the rest of the defensive coaching staff, has to be commended for the job they did despite dealing with such rotten injury luck throughout the 2024 season.
Ryan Mathews: Aaron Glenn
The Detroit Lions defense finished the 2024 season ranked fifth in team defense DVOA. Fifth. FIFTH. They were the fifth-best defense among 32 NFL teams despite placing more key players on injured reserve than any other team in recent memory. Some of y’all couldn’t wait for Glenn to be jettisoned from Detroit for years, and you finally got your wish. Hope that monkey’s paw doesn’t curl up on you.
Al Karsten: Aaron Glenn
It’s a long list of deserving coaches who helped propel the Lions to a conference-leading 15-2 season. While Dan Campbell was the battering ram leading the charge and Ben Johnson orchestrated the high-powered offense, it was Aaron Glenn who had to overcome the most adversity after being dealt a tough hand.
At one point, Glenn’s defense was without up to six starters—Aidan Hutchinson, Alim McNeill, Marcus Davenport, Derrick Barnes, Alex Anzalone, and Carlton Davis III—along with several key depth pieces. Yet, despite the constant shuffle, he managed to piece together a resilient unit that finished seventh in points allowed, fifth in defensive DVOA, and seventh in EPA/play allowed.
Glenn never had the luxury of a full-deck defense in his four years here but his ability to adapt to a revolving door of replacement players made for a spectacular swan song in Detroit.
Ty Schalter: Aaron Glenn
There was never any question Glenn could identify talent, coach up marginal players, or inspire a defense to play fast and aggressive. But one question still dogged him coming...
