OT: Lions Head Coaches
Someone mentioned Matt Patricia in the Sean Payton thread, and it got me thinking about Lions coaches, and specifically their coaching "legacies." What's fascinating to me is how many of these guys would never coach again at all. And honestly, just Dick Juaron (an interim coach for the Lions, mind you) would be the only one to ever have substantial NFL head coaching experience AFTER being the coach for the Lions.
Lions Head Coaches (games coached) over the past 45 years:
Monte Clark (105)
Never again HC. Administrator/Assistant in college/NFL.
Darryl Rogers (58)
Never again coach at major college or pro level.
Wayne Fontes (133)
Never again coach.
Bobby Ross (57)
3 years HC at Army.
Gary Moeller (7) (interim)
Never again HC. 3 years as NFL assistant.
Marty Morninweg (32)
Never again HC. Longtime NFL assistant.
Steve Mariucci (43)
Never again coach.
Dick Juaron (5) (interim)
4 years HC Buffalo Bills, NFL assistant 3 years.
Rod Marinelli (48)
Never again HC. Longtime NFL assistant.
Jim Schwartz (80)
Never again HC. Longtime NFL assistant.
Jim Caldwell (64)
Never again HC. Out of coaching since 2019.
Matt Patricia (42)
Never again HC. Analyst for Patriots in 2021.
Darell Bevell (5) (interim)
Assistant then Interim HC for Jaguars in 2021
The Lions are the common denominator here, certainly. But I don't know, is this just "Loser Lions" stuff? It feels hard to believe that the "stink" of the Lions would carry with HCs so far that so few would do anything productive, and basically none would ever be a HC in the NFL again.
January 25th, 2022 at 6:06 PM ^
Overall, it's pretty simple. For most of those guys the Lions were the 1st HC gig in the NFL. In order to get a 2nd NFL HC gig you need to show some measure of competence. It appears they all pretty much failed doing so with the Lions.
January 25th, 2022 at 9:35 PM ^
And Mariucci was at the end of his career.
January 25th, 2022 at 11:04 PM ^
He was only 50 when the Lions canned him. That suggests it wasn't a voluntary end of his career.
January 26th, 2022 at 9:37 AM ^
Agreed.... Mooch was a sacrificial lamb of the Matt Millen experiment. He was a good coach, working for a total doofus of a Pres/GM. He took San Fran to the playoffs 4 times in 5 seasons. Millen was an idiot who somehow got hired as GM from his broadcasting career. Millen told Ford that he appreciated the job offer, but he wasn't qualified.... Ford reportedly told him, 'you're a smart guy, you'll figure it out'. Boy was he wrong, on both accounts.
January 26th, 2022 at 9:50 AM ^
But I heard he was Tom Izzo's buddy.
January 26th, 2022 at 10:06 AM ^
both products of Iron Mountain, MI and NMU Wildcats.
January 25th, 2022 at 6:06 PM ^
How many coaches with a losing record get back into coach after being let go? I think there very few.
January 25th, 2022 at 6:43 PM ^
Their age, losing record, severance package sends most former NFL coaches to retirement or semi-retirement after being fired. Who wants to jump on the college recruiting trail at that point in their career?
How many coaches fired by any team go on to coach another team? How often has it worked out? I don't know, but whenever I ask the person that brings up this point, they can name maybe one or two; NOT 31.
January 25th, 2022 at 7:18 PM ^
How many coaches fired by any team go on to coach another team? How often has it worked out? I don't know, but whenever I ask the person that brings up this point, they can name maybe one or two; NOT 31.
I don't know either, but I decided to look up the current 2021 season Head Coaches. Only 6* were previously an NFL head coach (not including Bevell). The current trend, right now at least, is for young coordinators to be hired as young NFL head coaches.
I don't know if this speaks to the Lions situation over the past 45 years. Maybe it does, maybe it doesn't. A far as rehires go though, it seems less in the NFL than other leagues. The NBA, for example, is much more of a "retread" league when it comes to hiring coaches.
*Andy Reid, Bruce Arians, Pete Carroll, Bill Belichick, Mike McCarthy, Ron Rivera
January 25th, 2022 at 7:29 PM ^
Thanks. More than I thought. If we checked through history, I would guess we could separate the Lions from a chunk of the league. I sort of stand corrected.
I still think it is trivial nonsense to suggest that the measure of a good team is the rate at which its fired coaches go on to coach another team. Does it not mean that an organization is so bad they fire good coaches?
Thanks again.
January 25th, 2022 at 7:44 PM ^
Yeah, and honestly, I would have guessed more than 6 of 32 probably (18%).
For me the OP was just casual food for thought on a pretty slow conversation day. I didnt and don't really have a hypothesis.
I guess if I had the time and interest, lol I dont, I could go back and look at both a sample of previous years and those head coaches. As well as a sampling of NFL teams and their head coaches, and then maybe that would show if the Lions are on track or anomalous.
I dont know that we need to look at the Lions' hiring/firing practices with the HC to determine whether or not they're a "good" organization. :)
January 25th, 2022 at 9:12 PM ^
Gary Moeller had a winning record.
January 25th, 2022 at 6:07 PM ^
The lions have never had competent leadership, everybody is set up to fail.
January 25th, 2022 at 7:36 PM ^
....nor competent ownership. The fucking ford family are just plain brain dead and stupid. They are just happy to be in the NFL Boys Club, they are a cross between a clown show in a good year and a train wreck most every other year.
January 25th, 2022 at 9:25 PM ^
IDK...Sheila might actually have a pulse.
January 26th, 2022 at 6:22 AM ^
this has got to be like a group therapy session. 'hi, my name is [avatar name here] and i'm a lions fan.....'
and most of us are addicts (kidding) in that we will take any excuse to kinda, sorta, maybe hope the lions will turn it around. my excuses are like robbie's, that shiela might have been dealt all 23 gene pairs. and i'll say this about our present coach: he seemed to have his guys playing very hard the whole season, i saw little to no loafing for the bits of games i watched, and they only got blown out a couple of times. sure, they lost in epic lion fashion (66 yd field goal, hits the cross bar....and goes over) and their record was horrible. yet, they went 3-3-1 down the stretch and would've beaten 'bye week', too, if they could've gotten a little help from the officials.
so, go lions. curious about the draft in 3 months. you just know detroit would go absolutely ga-ga if the lions were a decent football team.
January 26th, 2022 at 9:07 AM ^
The Ford family has a long history of stupid, incompetent people. Henry Ford was fortunate enough to have a lot of smart people around him whose ideas and innovations he could take credit for.
January 25th, 2022 at 6:08 PM ^
Caldwell getting a second interview with Da Bears ? and he's a coach that deserves another gig so here's to him
January 25th, 2022 at 6:17 PM ^
They call it the grave yard of coaches for a reason. Dick Jauron doesn’t count. No Lions HC has ever gone on to be the head coach of another NFL team. One of them died while coach so he didn’t have a chance.
January 25th, 2022 at 9:34 PM ^
So, the Lions sign Don McCafferty, a Super Bowl winning coach and he coaches one season, has a heart attack and dies.
For bonus points, who succeeded McCafferty? No fair looking it up.
January 25th, 2022 at 9:44 PM ^
Schmidt?
January 26th, 2022 at 5:17 AM ^
I'll take the proverbial shot from left field and say Rick Forzano.
January 26th, 2022 at 8:12 AM ^
Ding...ding...ding. we have a winner. We'll be back with Final Jeopardy after this message...
And the Final Jeopardy answer is "he succeeded Rick Forzano."
January 26th, 2022 at 8:16 AM ^
Who is... Tommy Hudspeth ?
January 26th, 2022 at 3:36 PM ^
There is a reason you have a star and 143,643 points.
Hudspeth as a mediocrity by there were some guys on the coaching staff who were pretty damn good:
Rollie Dotsch who went 36-18 as head coach of the USFL Birmingham Stallions
Fritz Shurmur a long time Super Bowl winning NFL DC
Floyd Reese who was the 16 year GM of the Oilers/Titans
and
Bill Belichick whose resume goes without saying.
January 25th, 2022 at 6:35 PM ^
Pretty sure half those guys were pulled off the line at Wayne Assembly, and got to go right back.
January 25th, 2022 at 6:41 PM ^
Leadership starting the Fords. They should not let a Ford breed ever again. The gene pool is drained.
January 25th, 2022 at 6:57 PM ^
Well maybe they shouldnt fire a good coach. Caldwell was a good coach and I was shocked fans wanted him gone. I hope he is a head coach again.
January 25th, 2022 at 10:07 PM ^
I didn't realize it until I moved away, but Detroit sports radio is absolutely toxic. I was living near St Louis when the Rams were trash and Blues were an annual playoff disappointment but it was nothing like the 97.1 cesspool I remembered. The optimism and joy for sports was quite a change to listen to.
January 26th, 2022 at 10:47 AM ^
I have long thought that Detroit sports journalism is to toxic hacks what Kenya is to long-distance runners. To be sure, there are terrible sports journalists everywhere but between Albom, Valenti, Rob Parker, Sharp, Rosenberg, and who knows who else, I'd put our stable of hacks up against any city in the USA.
January 26th, 2022 at 11:27 AM ^
Cleveland says "hold my beer"
Tony Grossi - covers Browns, doesnt understand the game
Mary Kay Cabot - covers Browns, gossip collumnist
Darly Ruiter - covers Browns, hates Browns. Has no sources - simply retweets the national guys
Zack Jackson - covers all CLE sports - hates them all
Jason Lloyd - covers all CLE sports - hates the Cavs and Dan Gilbert. Hates the Browns and Baker Mayfield with a passion
Just about every on-air radio host - hate Baker Mayfield, dont talk about Cavs or the team formally known as the Indians (sorry, cant get used to "Guardians" just yet)
I think the common denominator is the personality of a person drawn to journalism. Job description: you get to tell people about the accomplishments of other people. Pay is next to nothing.
January 25th, 2022 at 6:58 PM ^
It's impossible to wash off the Lions skank. I think all the sharp people in the NFL avoid the organization, so they get only the leftovers.
January 25th, 2022 at 7:28 PM ^
Well, when you tend to hire guys that nobody else wants as head coaches, that tends to happen.
January 25th, 2022 at 8:45 PM ^
An amazing record
January 25th, 2022 at 8:51 PM ^
This is why i made them into headstones in my Coaches Graveyard a couple Haloweens ago.
January 25th, 2022 at 9:56 PM ^
The coaching graveyard under the Ford family ownership is actually deeper than your list.
When William Clay Ford became the sole owner of the Lions on November 22, 1963, he inherited the head coach George Wilson, who had been the Lions HC since 1957.
1957 was the last year the Lions won the NFL championship.
In 1964, WCF's first year owning the Lions, he or his flunky GM fired five of Wilson's assistants, and Wilson resigned as well.
To replace Wilson, WCF made his first head coach hire: Harry Gilmer.
Gilmer lasted two seasons. "His unpopularity with Lions fans reached a climax after a 28–16 loss to the Minnesota Vikings at Tiger Stadium in the regular season finale on December 11, 1966 when he was pelted with snowballs while exiting the field." Gilmer never coached again.
Gilmer was replaced by Lions hero Joe Schmidt, who lasted 6 years. He never coached again.
Schmidt was replaced by Don McCafferty, who coached for one season and then dropped dead of a heart attack at 53.
The next Lions coach was Lions assistant Rick Forzano, who didn't make it through his third season at the helm before quitting mid-season in 1976. He never coached again.
Forzano was replaced mid-season by Lions assistant Tommy Hudspeth, who was brought back for the 1977 season. That was his last, and he never was hired as HC again.
Hudspeth's successor was Monte Clark.
January 25th, 2022 at 10:27 PM ^
Joe Schmidt was a good coach. Caldwell was the best coach since Schmidt, and they fired him. Not good karma.
https://www.nytimes.com/1973/01/13/archives/schmidt-resigns-as-lions-coach-after-6-years-he-says-its-no-longer.html
January 26th, 2022 at 12:21 AM ^
Thank you for filling in the missing "primordial" days of Lions coaching. Fun fact: Forzano had coached at the Naval Academy and so knew Steve Belichick. He hired Bill Belichick for his first full time coaching job - with the Lions. So actually Belichick is part of the Forzano coaching tree! (Ha!)
The NFL in 1964 was still developing - and some teams and owners evolved with these new changes (national TV, color TV, bigger national awareness - eclipsing ultimately baseball as the professional spectator sport, pro athletes train year round and no longer have to take off season jobs selling stuff). Today, each team is a billion dollar business - not something that some rich person toys around as a lark - although some owners still try.
January 26th, 2022 at 11:02 AM ^
Excellent point re the development of the NFL. I was young, but I think it was Monday Night Football that made it finally take off. Prior to that, it was a lesser sport, MUCH less a big deal than baseball or boxing. This photo of Len Dawson at halftime of Super Bowl 1 captures the just-above-bowling nature of the game then, in my opinion:
January 25th, 2022 at 10:24 PM ^
When you come to the realization that Wayne Fontes is in fact your greatest head coach over the last 60 years, you know you've followed the wrong team for way too long.
January 26th, 2022 at 9:43 AM ^
Cocaine Wayne, and the curse of the halftime cigar
January 26th, 2022 at 12:04 PM ^
The crazy thing about the "Big Buck" is that he's simultaneously the winningest coach in Lions history and the losingest: he finished with a record of 66-67.
January 25th, 2022 at 10:47 PM ^
Feels like Schwartz will get another shot one day if/when he wants it. Seems like he's been a DC of pretty good teams ever since the time as Lions coach. And compared to the others, his record isn't that bad. He started with a worse situation than anyone else, coming off the 0-16 team (DC may have it worse, but it's close), and losing the franchise QB for most of his first two seasons. If someone wants a defensive coach with HC experience, they could do worse.
Bevell better get a HC gig himself, because he appears to be head coach poison.
January 26th, 2022 at 2:28 AM ^
The big problem is that they for the most part have hired lousy HC. Wayne was a big surprise for how successful he was but a lot of that had to do with the GM in the late 80s and early 90s who drafted Sanders and other talent along the lines. I was very excited when the Lions hired Mariucci and thought he would rebuild the team but he failed. I don't have much hope for the current coach but he reminds me a lot of Fontes.
January 26th, 2022 at 9:08 AM ^
I think Mariucci could have been good if he wasnt working with Millen as a GM
January 26th, 2022 at 9:44 AM ^
100% agree, if he had a competent GM with the brains to sign quality players. Millen did not fit that bill, but he was pretty good in the broadcast booth.
January 26th, 2022 at 8:38 AM ^
For the most part, the Lions have chosen poorly. They did have a promising young assistant named Don Shula once. I wonder what happened to him?
January 26th, 2022 at 10:06 AM ^
Caldwell should and will be a HC again very soon.
Schwartz probably should have gotten another shot after being a very good DC for several years after leaving Detroit.
Completely forgot the Dick Jauron years even happened
January 26th, 2022 at 11:16 AM ^
It was painful reading that list.
Wayne Fontes wasted the most talented teams the Lions have had in my lifetime.