Jim Caldwell (AP photo/Patrick Semansky)
The 2013 Lions’ season was a disaster.
The year before was worse. The head coach was shoved out the door and the search for a replacement began. Different names were bandied about. Debate raged on. There was no slam dunk pick and opinions varied. But one thing was clear; the franchise was stuck in the mud and needed to make a choice that would deliver a serious jolt of energy. Instead, they remained conservative and tabbed Jim Caldwell, a selection that stirs up about as much excitement as an undecorated baked potato.
The Detroit Lions have not had a distinct style of play for over a decade now. There is no identity and no uniqueness. Marty Mornhinweg, Steve Mariucci, Rod Marinelli, Jim Schwartz...what were the calling cards of these coaches? Did they have any to speak of?
Not really.
Mornhinweg was billed as some type of offensive savant, but I don’t recall any inventive scheming or strategizing during his tenure. Same goes for Mariucci. Marinelli was a defensive lifer who was in well over his head as top man on the totem pole. Schwartz is in a similar boat.
So why bring aboard another head coach that plays things close to the vest? Look at the Philadelphia Eagles, for example. They had gotten stale under Andy Reid last year and won just four games. A change had to be made.
But they didn’t go grab Norv Turner or Jack Del Rio. They didn’t shake the cobwebs off of Marty Schottenheimer. They decided that if they were going to make a change, they should actually bring someone in that does things differently. Chip Kelly was plucked from the college ranks, his freewheeling Oregon offense getting the call up to the big leagues. Not surprisingly, the move paid off. The Eagles collected ten victories and captured the division crown. As the saying goes, “fortune favors the bold.”
The Lions couldn’t spell bold if you spotted them the B, O, and L. The franchise and its history are so flooded with mismanagement and mediocrity that expecting them to climb out of the hole now is not only irrational, but hopeless.
After all, this is the same group of knuckleheads that made Matt Millen the second-highest paid general manager in the league. Never mind that his teams were literally unable to win on the road (0 and 24 during his first three seasons) or really, win at all (a whopping 50 games under .500 during his tenure). They let him have the keys to the car for seven full seasons.
One Mistake After Another
So how did they transition out of the Millen era? Did they go raid the Patriots front office, or grab a top scout from elsewhere in the league? No.
They simply looked to Millen’s left and saw Martin Mayhew standing there.
“That’ll do,” they said.
Teams are often described as having underwent a “tireless search” for their next head coach or general manager. The Lions don’t believe in such frivolities. Better to find the wrong guy quickly than the right one in three weeks. That’s the type of backwards-minded thinking that brings about one solitary playoff win in a half-century of football.
The Lions will trumpet the fact that Jim Caldwell took the Colts to the Super Bowl in his first season at the helm. That’s a respectable accomplishment to be sure, but let’s also remember that Bozo the Clown could have coached Indy during those years, and Peyton Manning still would have found a way to churn out 12 victories. A more telling season might have taken place two years later when Manning was out for the year and Caldwell was forced to figure out a way to win with someone else. No such luck. They lost their first 13, ultimately finishing with the worst record in the NFL (2-14). He was shown the door shortly thereafter.
Finishing With A Thud
It would be unfair to describe Caldwell as an alarmingly bad choice. The guy has had some success as both an offensive coordinator and head coach in the league. But there is no denying that this is a vanilla hire. Caldwell’s Ravens played on the Monday night stage in Detroit about a month ago and nearly put fans to sleep with their ho-hum effort on offense. They played the entire evening without ever reaching the end zone.
Keep in mind, the Ravens were fighting for a playoff berth just like the Leos. You should have felt their desperation when on offense. Yet, in dropping their final two games to slip out of postseason position, Caldwell’s unit could muster just two measly touchdowns.
To recap; the Ravens needed to come out with all guns blazing in their final trio of games. Instead, they won once, lost twice, and the offense crossed the goal line a total of two times in 180 minutes of ball. Their offensive coordinator was rumored to be getting booted out of town.
Well, worry not, Ravens fans. The Lions will not only take this flat and unexciting play-caller off your hands, they will make him their head coach.
This is a team in crisis. Calvin Johnson is only getting older and Matthew Stafford regresses on a near-weekly basis. The window of opportunity for this group, if there ever was one to begin with, is right now. The Detroit Lions needed to swing for the fences in finding their next coach -- instead, they opted for a sacrifice bunt. Such is life with the most inept organization in all of professional sports; the more the rest of the world changes, the more the Lions stay the same.
And that’s never been a good thing.
