The Detroit Lions got some big news on Tuesday afternoon offensive coordinator Ben Johnson took his name out of the running for both the Commanders and Seahawks head coaching jobs and decided to stay on the Lions coaching staff.
One of the early reactions to this move was to say something to the effect of “you really hurt yourself when you take yourself out of the running because that opportunity may not be there next time.” That’s understandable. There’s a chance you could have a really bad year and screw yourself out of contention or, in Johnson’s case, you could make teams think that you just don’t want to be a head coach.
In the end, if you’re good enough, teams will keep coming after you. That and you see things like Matt Patricia keep getting jobs and realize that front offices just get stuck on guys and they’ll keep hiring them on name value and past accomplishments alone.
I’m taking the opposite side of the argument. I believed that what Johnson did was smart in the moment that it happened. I believed it was even smarter after seeing his comments after the announcement.
“I think some people — I can just speak on a personal level — some people, they really want to climb as fast as they can,” Johnson said. “I know particularly young coaches want to do that. That’s not been the case for me, per se. I want to be around football. I want to win football games. I want to be around good people. And when I finally had a chance to step back and take a deep breath and look at it, that was the most important thing.”
The part that I’m zeroing in on is the part where Johnson says that most coaches want to climb as fast as they can. He’s right. We’re in an age where teams are constantly looking for the next Sean McVay or Kyle Shanahan type. The young offensive guru with the analytical mind. Teams want it so bad that they’re moving on from coaches they just hired fast because they want the next guy to be the guy that they’re looking for. since 2018, 10 teams have hired an offensive coordinator to be their head coach and they were all fired and lasted an average of 2.5 years on the job.
A lot of those guys were young first time head coaches that climbed the ranks super fast and now have to go climb back up the ladder and try to make teams trust that they can lead a team again.
That’s not to say you can’t hire an offensive coordinator. Some of them work out. Guys like Kevin O’Connell and Matt LaFleur are both doing pretty well at the moment. They are, along with some others, the exceptions right now.
With all that in mind, it seems like the best thing to do at this point is wait it out and go when there’s a situation that is absolutely perfect for you and it’s one that you know you have a good chance of succeeding at instead of going somewhere with an impatient owner that’s more interested in striking gold fast than they are being realistically patient about their teams rebuild.
I think people look at that Washington job and see the perfect opportunity for an offensive coordinator. They’re set up with a new GM and a new owner that’s willing to dole out the dough for a good staff and they have the second pick in this years draft. A draft that’s supposed to be good to go for quarterbacks.
What I see is a job in which you get to be the guinea pig head coach for a group of guys that you don’t even know get along yet and you have get the extremely hard task of hoping you hit on a quarterback in the draft. That is something that is just not happening a lot. You then get to be scapegoat when the team doesn’t draft the right guy,. Something that happens quite a bit.
With all that in mind, it seems like Johnson made the right choice to stick around in a spot where he’s having some real success instead of jumping to the first ship that welcomes you aboard. If the Lions get back to this point, or beyond, next season, he’ll be able to go wherever he wants next year. If you’re good enough, they’ll wait for you.