Lions Blog: 2018 Off-Season Coaching Changes

Heading into the 2018 off season (which for Detroit began at the end of game in week 17) it was clear to me that some substantial changes were coming for my Lions. The team had needs to be addressed and problems that brought about a disappointing 2017 season. Some changes took place immediately, such as the firing of a large amount of the coaching staff. Other changes had to wait for either free agency or the draft. I wanted to cover some of the note worthy changes here in this revamped blog while they are still somewhat fresh in my mind and while there is little to no new meaningful football news going on at the moment. I am breaking this into 3 parts with the first one on the coaching changes. Free Agency and the Draft will get their own posts later.

Head Coach: I had been a staunch defender of Jim Caldwell since the Lions 1-7 start in 2015 and believed it was destructive and pointless to be talking about firing the most successful head coach certainty in Lions recent history. I continued to support Jim until the loss at Cincinnati in week 16. That was not only the game that ended the Lions Playoff hopes, it do so in a pathetic fashion. The Bengals were a team that were playing for nothing, having been eliminated from play off contention and at the time were seen as likely to fire their head coach ( which wound up not happening). The Lions still had a good chance of making the post season (at least I thought so). When I watched the game though, it looked like the team had given up by the half time. I knew at that point Jim Caldwell's time as head coach was at an end. I was also learning the name of the Team's likely next head coach, Matt Patricia. While there was some question as to whether he would end up here by some pundits I was certain he would, his connection to the Lions General Manager Bob Quinn from both of their time in New England and the idea that Bob may have been planning this all along. Patricia Was the Patriots Defensive Coordinator and had worked other roles within the organization before that as well. He has multiple Super Bowl Rings and is known to be an effective DC. In New England he ran a defensive scheme that adjusted on a week to week basis to counter the offense of what ever team they are facing. This includes changing between 4-3 and 3-4 defensive set ups as well, which has caused many sports writers and the like in the Detroit area quite a bit of confusion. We have been running a 4-3 defensive ( 4 line men and 3 line backers) ever since I have been watching the Lions. Now people want to know what the base defense for the team is going to be with its new head coach. The answer seems to be that it will change from week to week like it did in New England. The fact the Patricia choose as his new DC was his old mentor Paul Pasqualoni, who seems to be an extension of the new Head Coach, it is easy to assume that Detroit's Defense will have a very Patriot feel to it come the new season.

Defensive Coordinator: We have had a seemingly successful defensive coordinator in Detroit name Teryl Austin since 2014 that every year seemed like the next big head coaching candidate and yet slipped through the cracks every year. When learning he was not going to get the head coaching job here he left to take up the DC job in Cincinnati. Teryl's defensive scheme was much more of an attacking one with lineman going as far down field as they can to get to the opposing quarterback or running back. This resulted in a defense that put up some big sack numbers during the good times (2014 and a little bit of 2015) but looking like it could not handle running backs or tight ends let alone get to the quarterback. It seems to me in hindsight that Austin only had one good year in 2014 when the Lions had the number one run defense and the second best overall. When the team lost its big defensive tackles like Suh and Fairley the Lions defensive never came close to that production again. I have started to think that Teryl Austin is a bit over rated as a result. He was handed a really good defense by the previous head coach Jim Schwartz and probably under performed what its potential was that year. I am not saying we should have stuck with Schwartz as I think he was a bad fit for a team with disciple problems (which the Lions did) but I do think there is a good reason Austin is still not a head coach all these years after that stellar defense he fielded in 2014.  Paul Pasqualoni was brought in by the new Head coach and while the team has been saying that Paul will be making the calls on the defense it seems to me that he was bought in to implement the changes that Patricia is making to the defensive side of the ball. Paul has not been a coach in the NFL for years and spent most of his tine in college football at Syracuse.  He acted as Patricia's Coach and mentor years ago an it is clear that he had a big influence on Patricia's defensive style.

Offensive line Coach: In 2013, Detroit had a decent offensive line a 1000 yard rusher name Reggie Bush. In 2014 the team had the same offensive line and the same running backs and yet the team had a massive decline in both pass protection and rushing yards. The difference was a change in coaching staff, specifically the offensive line coach Ron Prince. I have seen several things on a consistent basis since 2014 including lack of protection of our quarterback, lack of an effective running game, consistent injuries to starting members of the offensive line, and a lack of unit cohesion resulting from said injuries. This has been true since Jim Bob Cooter took control of the offensive as well as a complete change over in personal on the offensive line including two first round picks and two high priced free agents, the results have been the same. I believe the firing of Ron Prince as offensive line coach was the single biggest thing the Lions could have done to improve this struggling unit. The new O-Line coach Jeff Davidson is not someone I am familiar with. According to this Pride of Detroit Article dated 2-13-2018 which services as a profile of Jeff, he has worked with multiple teams since 1995 including the Saints, Patriots, Browns, Panthers, Vikings, Chargers, and Broncos and has had varying degrees of success utilizing a power blocking man to man scheme that uses a fullback (more on that in a later article. I have to believe that that Jeff will be a substantial improvement over Ron as O-line coach which combined with the other improvements to the pass and run game that I will cover later will make this one exciting offense to watch this coming season. 

Retaining Jim Bob Cooter: With the off season changes to the coaching staff once change I am glad wasn't made was with the Offensive Coordinator Jim Bob Cooter. Stafford's improvement since he took over the Lion's offense mid way through 2015 has been talked about at length by many people since then and everyone seems to agree that it is for real. JBC was Stafford's choice to remain the OC and since getting his big contract extension last year the Lions have molded the offense to the quarterback's liking with high end free agents and draft picks on the offensive line and two new running backs, so to take away his CO would be counter productive to say the least. In my idea world, teams would not even have an offensive coordinator as that role would be fulfilled by the quarterback, but since no team does that the next best choice would be an OC that is in lock step with, and is a natural extension of the quarterback and JBC fits that description to the letter.

The coaching changes were the first to be made so it makes sense that I would cover them first on this blog that no on will read of mine, but since it was the longest ago I wanted to make sure I wrote something down before I forget about it. I will be doing entries on the free agent acquisitions and draft picks in later articles which will hopefully come soon.

Starting up a Detroit Lions Section of My Blog

Since 2014, I have spent an unhealthy amount of time thinking and talking about my local National Football League team the Detroit Lions. I have annoyed friends, family and co-workers with my interest and opinions about the Lions and yet for what ever reason I never actually sat down and typed out anything on the subject matter. I have also let my Detroit focus blog go unused for about 4 years despite having plenty of stuff I wanted to blog about (in most cases, this thought would occur well after the fact). As an attempt to provide a little more meaning to my life as well as perhaps giving myself an outlet for my thoughts on local stuff I am returning to this blog. I cannot say how often I will post here but I do believe I have let too much stuff go by of which I have had opinions (strong ones in some cases) that have gone mostly unheard by anyone else, thus this new beginning. Since we are just past the 2018 NFL Draft and the first few phases of free agency This seems like as good of time as any to start blogging about the Detroit Lions.

Just a little background on my experiences watching the Detroit Lions. I have lived in the Detroit area all of my life but I spent much of it unaware of the team ( I missed the Barry Sanders era completely). I was aware that they were a bad team in the 2000's and at family Thanksgiving gatherings Football would be on but I did not care at the time. I first watched a significant amount of Lions football in 2007 when we got our first HD antenna and started receiving HD broadcast over the air. I watched most, if not all of that season. It was actually a better than average season for the Lions that year (the Matt Millen era) as the team went 7-9 after starting hot and ending bad. It was good enough for me to get my foot in the door. I watched the first few games of the 0-16 2008 season before losing interest. I missed all of the 2009 season as well as the introduction of the team's current Quarterback Matthew Stafford. In 2010 after moving out to my own place getting a nice new TV I knew that Football would be the perfect thing to watch on it. I was treated to my first case of my Football team getting screwed by the officials as I watched a game winning touchdown taken away in grand, stupid fashion under some sort of "completing the process" rule (The "Calvin Johnson" rule as it became known as). I knew that the season was ruined at that point and tuned it out as I moved on to other distractions. In 2011 I watched the full season as the Lions with their new Quarterback (who's name I was fast learning) and their star Wide Receiver ( who I was also getting more knowledgeable about) put up crazy numbers and crazier passes and the Lions went 10-6 and to the post season for the first time in more then a decade. Even though Stafford suffered a hand injury in the middle of the season that cost the team at least a few games I though the the team did well. As a result I was very much looking forward to the 2012 season and even more let down by it as well (4-12). Once again I checked out fairly early in the season. In 2013 I watched the whole season and have been doing so ever since. I have been keeping track of the off season developments since 2015 as well as watching (when I can ) the NFL Draft every year. Since watching the team going 11-5 in 2014 I have been more optimistic about the Lions chances in the upcoming season than most of the people I know ( or know of) and while my expectations for the team have yet to be met in any year The Lions have consistently (since 2014 anyway) done better than most of the experts that I follow have predicted which I take as some sort of  validation of my enthusiasm.

I know that I skipped over a bunch of stuff and only touched on the things I did mention but I just wanted to set up some idea of where I am coming from. I am someone who Has been following the team for about a decade with mild interest during the first 5 years and much more determined interest in the second 5 years. Since 2015 the off season has become longer for me in the way that I look forward to the start of the season much more. I follow every development as I try to figure out where the team is headed. I just wanted to get this blog going again with a basic post. I intend to do more detailed observations about this off season and even past seasons. Hopefully I will be more consistent in blogging from here on out. Here's to hoping.