After drawing significant head coaching interest for the second consecutive year, Ben Johnson has repeated his decision from 2023. Detroit’s highly-acclaimed offensive coordinator will remain with the Lions, Tom Pelissero of NFL Network reports.
Johnson entered the 2024 hiring cycle as a prime candidate to land a head coaching gig. Only two vacancies remain, and he was a finalist to join both the Commanders and Seahawks. Washington in particular seemed to be in pole position to land him, but both teams’ searches will now move in a different direction. As ESPN’s Adam Schefter notes, Johnson’s asking price served as a deterrent for some teams. Schefter further details that Johnson’s decision was learned as the Commanders were en route to speak with his counterpart, Aaron Glenn. 
It is unknown if financial hesitancy applies to the Commanders and/or Seahawks, teams which have interviewed Johnson twice. The 37-year-old was believed to be Washington’s top choice on a number of occasions, and recent reports pointed to a Johnson hire being the likeliest outcome. After doing the same last year, though, he has elected to make at least one more run at a Super Bowl with the Lions.
Detroit’s offense has been among the league’s best during Johnson’s two-year run as the team’s OC. He has drawn considerable interest around the NFL as a result, and it was reported before the season ended that the Panthers would be a team to watch closely. Carolina attempted to land Johnson last year, and he was believed to be the team’s top choice before Buccaneers OC Dave Canales was tapped for the position. The Commanders and Seahawks openings profile as being more attractive than the one in Carolina, but those teams have now seen one of their finalists bow out of the running.
The Commanders have taken an extended look at candidates with a background on both sides of the ball during their search for a Ron Rivera replacement. Washington has spoken twice with Glenn, Cowboys defensive coordinator Dan Quinn and Texans OC Bobby Slowik in addition to the second sit-down with Johnson. The Commanders are also interested in Ravens DC Mike Macdonald, and a member of that group of candidates will now be in line for the gig in the nation’s capital.
Quinn and Macdonald in particular are also central figures in Seattle’s search. Both teams decided to wait until after Sunday’s conference championship games to make their final HC decisions, and the elimination of the Ravens and Lions opened the door to their respective searches reaching an end in the near future. That may well still be the case, but Johnson is no longer in consideration.
Today’s update will of course be welcomed news on a Lions staff which was labeled as one likely to see signficant departures in the wake of the team’s success. Glenn landing a head coaching position would deal a blow to Dan Campbell and Co., but the Lions’ offense will again be expected to put up high-end production with Johnson in place. The latter’s relationship with quarterback Jared Goff was a central reason why he declined to leave last year, and their partnership will continue in 2024. That season marks the final one of Goff’s contract.
Wow. That’s some good news.
Maybe waiting out his stupid head coach who was the biggest contributor to the Lions not making a Super Bowl appearance this year with his idiotic decisions.
Lions were aggressive all year and it worked. Now, one bad game (in which everyone would have applauded the decisions if Reynolds didn’t have stone hands) and many want his head.
The phrase should no longer be “what have you done for me lately?” It should be “what did you do for me last game?” with the way some people react.
All season long if it backfired they went on to next week, there’s no “next week” in the playoffs. Should of taken the points BOTH times!!!
Hindsight is 20/20
If they worked out he would be lauded as genius and gutsy.
Playing it safe doesn’t always work. And no guarantee they would have won if they kicked field goals. 49ers also missed a fg.
Monday morning couch coaching at its finest.
No, he just would have gotten away with a stupid decision.
Might be he was showing his confidence in the players to ‘do their job’ because he saw some ‘doubts’ in their eyes and demeanor.
Numbers were actually in his favor. As someone already stated. Wasn’t a stupid decision to go for it. But I can see why someone with limited understanding would think that.
Bartley is only a 77% kicker from 40-49. 50+ he’s less than 40%.
link to freep.com
Badgley*
@Buffalo- We saw how well pundits and fans reacted when Baltimore changed their identity in the playoffs. People loved that they stopped being aggressive and pounding the ball down people’s throats, right?
If Detroit had momentum, sure, take the points, but they didn’t… and regardless, the decision to go for it *should* have worked out. 10 players executed, but one didn’t.
People still defending the idiocy is what’s so perplexing. You don’t get do overs in the playoffs is the difference. They had a three or four game cushion in that division all year, so gambling wasn’t going to be the difference between life or death. First time, a FG resets the quarter to where it was at halftime almost halfway through the third quarter. The second time, you were down in a conference championship game with like 8 minutes left in the game. Yet dummies are still talking about it was a good idea when the next drive pretty much ended the game.
As pointed out multiple times, there is no guarantee Badgley makes that kick. He’s about 50% from that distance. That’s a dice roll. They don’t have Justin Tucker.
Ever since analytics became more popular in football, teams have gone for it more. That’s just a fact. Teams listen to the data and the data suggests teams go for it more frequently. If you’re old school, that’s fine. I would have kicked it, too. But it’s a defensible decision and I’m just saying it’s not the most egregious call in the world… killing Campbell for two questionable decisions is silly when he ultimately let their style of play be the choice.
If you have a kicker who can’t make a 47 yard FG, that’s on your personnel department. College kickers make that kick routinely.
Ahh, incorrect again.
Of 121 qualified FBS kickers, just barely over 1/3 of them were better than 80% TOTAL on the season! And just over 1/4 were 70% or worse TOTAL on the season! Therefore, barely any kickers were routine from even shorter distances. Wanna guess the overall FG% from 40+ in FBS in 2023? Hint: it won’t support your claim.
Regardless, your gripe about the personnel department is just shifting the goalposts (so to speak), but it would relieve Campbell of criticism, so who do you want to blame then: Holmes and co. or Campbell?
It’s a difference of opinion. Calm down.
If that is directed to me, my question is: why the assumption that I’m heated? I have no issues with his opinion and it doesn’t make me upset. The emphasis used was strictly to make my points. Any conclusions about tone might just be assumptions.
I understand that style of play got the lions to that point but it also prevented them from advancing. They left 6 points on the table in a game they lost by 3. A championship game, nonetheless. If there was a time to go for it on 4th down it was at the end of the first half, instead he kicked it lol ..the second 4th down attempt is inexcusable. They were down 3, tie the game and move on… instead he gave the 9ers the ball at the 40 and they already had the lead. Really, really bad decision making on Campbell’s part.
Yes, but that’s said with hindsight. Coaches can’t see into the future and know the number of points the opposition will have at the end of the game. SF had all the momentum in the world. The biggest factors toward the loss were lack of execution–Josh Reynolds dropping the ball (which if he hadn’t, everyone would have praised Campbell for sticking to the Lions’ identity by going for it on 4th down and playing not to win instead of not to lose) and Gibbs fumbling in Detroit territory.
Was it the greatest set of decisions? No, probably not. Should he be fired over it? Absolutely not. It’s a learning experience.
Hindsight? While I agree with you in spirit, I think that it was pretty obvious in the moment. The Lions had an opportunity to make this a three possession game at one point. They went with their philosophy instead. It’s not the worst mistake ever made, especially considering how important a part of their identity that that has been, but it was pretty obvious to me that the points were the better move strategically.
I think that’s a fair assessment, Ak. I wondered aloud whether either was the correct decision, also, but I ended applauded the guts before seeing the outcome of the plays, so I don’t think I have a right to slam Campbell for it.
No, it was said real time by smart people. Dan Campbell isn’t one of them.
But he might be coach of the year.
The people that complain about him going for it are the same people that if the kicker missed the field goal would kill him for changing his identity in the playoffs.
This is just a no win scenario for him, his kicker is totally unreliable ( Badgley is almost right at a 50% success rate at field goals of 45+) so if his kicker misses people kill him and if he goes for it and the receiver drops it people kill him.
The thing that baffles me that hardly anyone I’ve seen has talked about was the decision to run the ball on 3rd and goal with a minute left. Forced them to burn a timeout which made it so they couldn’t stop the clock when SF got the ball.
Did you think Brandon Staley was a smart coach when he used to do that stupidity every week and fail at it? I mean that was just a part of his identity. There is no defense of those decisions in either spot. The only one that would have made sense is ironically the one he didn’t take at the end of the half. Be down by a FG while you’re on the wrong end of a 20 nothing run with time running out on the game and think it’s a good idea to gamble that you’re going to suddenly get a defensive stop to stay within a one possession game.
If you’re going to reply back to a comment please use a example that does fold like cheap plastic law chairs when the slightest bit of context is added.
There is a fundamental difference between going for it in the opposing teams territory when the analytics are within one percent of going for it or kicking a FG and going for it on 4th and 5 on your own 20 in the first quarter like Staley was doing.
This guy took his team from a 1-6 start last year to a 12-5 NFC championship season but somehow he’s the problem with this team. Not Reynolds’s dropping the ball, not Gibbs fumbling, not the crazy ayuk catch. Not trusting a bad kicker to make a 50 yarder is the issue lol.
One would argue the Lions also only made it that far for those same decisions. They did that the entire year, it would be weird if they stopped doing what got them there.
I think Campbell is an excellent coach who uses that aggressive style to its utmost effectiveness, and deserves respect for what he’s been able to do. He should have taken those points. The aggression serves two purposes for the Lions-one is the on field benefit, which sometimes can backfire. The other is arguably more important, and that’s what it does for the team’s mentality. For a team like Detroit, which has had to build a winning identity and culture from the ashes of ineptitude and disappointment, coupling that aggressive mindset with competent coaching and a unified message can exponentially accelerate the development of that identity. Basically, being aggressive with a young roster that can actually perform can help build team culture. Overall, it’s good in their circumstances.
However, in that situation, strategy is more important. The second field goal opportunity in particular stands out for several reasons. The first was the failure of the first attempt-sure, one could argue that it looks scared or lacking commitment to kick instead of sticking with one’s guns, but the alternative is that doing one’s best Brandon Staley impression will just make you look more obstinate when you fail for a second time. Another reason is the fact that the opponent had scored unanswered, and that the momentum swing benefitted them. This is especially true considering that in a home stadium the crowd can very easily get brought back into the game, and it’s much more difficult to take them back out, as Detroit had managed to do. The biggest reason though, by far, was that a field goal at one of those points would have made it a three possession game. You can’t pass that up, especially as an underdog, especially on the road, and especially against a team with much more playoff experience than your young squad.
In real time, I remember putting my face in my hands because I knew that Campbell was going to go for it, and I knew I wanted him to take the points. If nothing else, it’d have ratcheted up the pressure on a San Francisco offense who was already struggling. Not only did they get the ball on the spot, they got a momentum boost from the fourth sown stop, and only had to plan to score two touchdowns. As we saw from the Lions’ onside kick at the end, hurrying against the clock to score just one more field goal is often hurried and difficult. So, Campbell deserves credit in my mind for turning his team’s identity into a successful on field philosophy, but in that scenario, he definitely should have played the situation and taken the points.
The Lions ran away with that division and were the favorites coming into the year. Those decisions had nothing to do with them getting there. Those decisions are just the personality he’s cultivated when he got there with a terrible team. News flash, the Lions are now one of the strongest rosters in the league. Smart people change their approach when they have more tools at their disposal to get the job done. Two conventional decisions instead of sticking to some silly ideology has them in the Super Bowl today instead of sitting home making excuses for dumb decisions.
If you don’t think creating an identity and getting players to buy into the coach’s philosophy is part of why they’re good then I’m going to venture that you’ve never coached a day of football in your life. That’s not a bad thing, but you can’t sit there and say that building culture, fearlessness, and confidence do not add value and contribute to the results.
I also would vehemently disagree that they have one of the strongest rosters in the league. They have one of the rosters best tailored to the philosophy and created identity. Talent-wise, I’m taking SF, KC, BAL, PHI, DAL, BUF, CIN w/ a healthy Burrow, maybe even MIA when healthy and CLE given that defense and with a healthy Chubb. Detroit needs another pass rusher, two corners, a safety, a WR or 2, and they have a good but not great QB.
Solid tantrum. You seem new to football.
@doghockey- I’m not sure if that’s directed at me, but if so, I’m just arguing people should lay off coaches a bit more. A couple questionable decisions shouldn’t mean calling for a guy’s head when he’s been great all year.
Smart decision to stay. No guarantees he’d have success if he went to an also ran franchise where they’re starting over with ownership etc.. He’s young enough where he knows he has a good thing going in Detroit
Pretty much what I said more than a month ago when his name started making the rounds as a hot HC candidate. Someone countered that HC opportunities don’t come around that often but I believe a talented person can always create an opportunity for themselves.
There are normally 6 or more head coaching positions open every year.
I was kind of surprised he didn’t run with the Commanders gig. New owner, Chance to trade up and get any QB he wants or not, A new CEO from a successful team, There seemed to be a lot to like there. That seemed to be a job people would want.
Coach completely resurrects a long dormant franchise. Coach makes one bad decision in a game they probably lose anyway. Coach is worst thing ever. Give me a break.
Pete Carroll basically got the same treatment after that bad call in the SB against New England. One game or one play cannot define a career. Ray Flaherty’s Redskins got destroyed 73-0 in the 1940 title game but Flaherty rebounded to win a championship 2 years later. He’s enshrined in the HOF.
Then, he never got back to another Super Bowl.
As I said, a career cannot be defined by whether or not someone makes a SB appearance. You could construct a very impressive list of coaches and players who never made it to the big stage.
He made two Super Bowls two years in a row and won the first. As a Lions fan, I’d take that any day.
Some reports saying he was asking for 15 million a year and that spooked teams.
He wouldn’t ask that; though his agent might….
This might be one to revisit in a couple weeks. If the Chiefs win another Super Bowl and Andy Reid decides to retire, that job could be very appealing for a guy like Johnson
Think he was counting on the Charger job which ownership thinks throwing money at a spoiled brat will pan out. Johnson was my choice as I think he’d mesh with Herbert better than a Harbaugh.
The Chargers seemingly had their eyes on Harbaugh long before they fired Staley so I’m not surprised they went there. At this point Johnson is probably waiting on a situation with a franchise QB in place. The Bills seem most likely if they fire McDermott next year or maybe a surprise team like the Bears. Assuming they draft Caleb Williams and Eberflus fails to get them to the playoffs next year
Great point! Because Jim Harbaugh has no track record of success at any level.
Johnson is staying. If Reid retires, I can see Belichik slipping into that position in KC.
Does this reopen the window for Belicheck to Washington???
I always thought Slowik made the most sense for Washington anyways.
Slowik apparently withdrew as well.
It probably does in some way in theory, but I imagine that it may benefit Mike Macdonald, Bobby Slowik, or even Dan Quinn more. There’s a pretty strong pivot style-wise from the defensive, experienced Belichick to the young, offensive Johnson.
If Washington was leaning towards youth and freshness before, I don’t know if they’ll want an experienced and elder (the eldest, as it were) option. Even Quinn, who profiles to me in a similar fashion to the coach they just fired, is not as old as Belichick if Washington swings back to wanting experience. Belichick I believe will want to rebuild a roster his way, but even with that in mind, you have to think that his age will make teams further away from contention wary to saddle themselves for several years to do that.
Slowik makes sense since he was the passing game specialist in SF and Adam Peters was the Asst GM there for years, so they are familiar with each other.
It shouldn’t reopen the door for Belichick to Washington. I’m sure rumors will be floated bout Bill, but Washington just got it right by hiring Adam Peters to be the GM. The very last thing you want to do is bring in a coach that might want to try to usurp some of the GM’s power. Reportedly, that is the reason Bill isn’t in Atlanta right now.
Bill Belichick is 72 years old. He’s got maybe 2-3 years of coaching left and Washington is more than 2 years away from being a contender. Washington to me looks like a team looking to tear down to the studs and build over. What better way to hire a young coach and give him time. Slowik is probably the best option now. I wouldn’t be surprised if Washington drafts Joe Alt 2nd overall over a QB or even trades back a couple spots and takes him. The popular pick is a QB but at the same time there could be better options in the second round than Howell in possibly JJ McCarthy or Bo Nix.
Eagles in 2025.
What quality assistant coach would take a “promotion” to work for an impetuous nut case (e.g. Panthers)?
The one that they hired…
One hell of an OC, not everyone is a HC. Hell most HC are not very good at the position. Hoping DET gives him a raise to stay for 3 more years.
I’m sure David Tepper is excited to interview him a third straight offseason next year.
Big argument about Campbell repeatedly going for it on 4th down, and how it might ultimately cost him his job, and allowing Johnson to take over…
While I have my own opinions about being a bit too aggressive (and not just in the NFC CG), isn’t it Johnson’s job to come up with plays that will be successful in those instances? What I’m saying is there’s blame for those failed 4th downs to go around. Campbell for maybe being too aggressive, Johnson for not calling better plays, and the offense for not executing better.
As for the kicker being less than automatic from 40+ or 50+…odds are he’d make ONE of the 2 they passed on, and it’s a totally different situation. GB went for it plenty all year, and just like Detroit, it cost them against SF in a playoff game too.
Big argument? More like a small bit of babbling among you and a few others who don’t know much about football and emotionally react to a few plays like a child getting candy taken away.
Petty insults just show your lack of intelligence
A. I didn’t partake in the discussion (is that an acceptable term or am I required to use “babbling” since that’s your preferred word?) I referenced.
B. I didn’t react emotionally. I gave an opinion on the topic.
C. It’s always funny when guys spout their intellectual superiority on a subject, then resort to name calling and baseless assumptions to back up the nothing they added to the conversation.
Detroit is destined to fall off next year – as the teams in their division will be getting better and they’ll start having to pay their young stars.
Sort of makes you wonder if the over-leveraged ownership group in Washington is trying to pinch pennies.
Good. Leaves the Jets another HC option when Salah crashes and burns next fall