The Detroit Lions didn’t hire from within for their open offensive coordinator position, but they did bring in a familiar face.
The Lions are hiring Broncos passing game coordinator John Morton to replace Ben Johnson, according to ESPN’s Adam Schefter. Morton coached in Denver for the last two seasons.
Before landing in Denver he served as senior offensive assistant with the Lions in 2022 after a handful of stops with other franchises amounting to 21 years of NFL coaching experience. Morton is also a Michigan native, growing up in Rochester Hills and graduating from Western Michigan in 1997.
Morton’s passing game with the Broncos pre-Bo Nix tied for fourth in the league in fewest interceptions (9), sixth in passer rating (96.7) and eighth in passing touchdowns (28). In 2024, the Broncos broke in rookie quarterback Bo Nix who exceeded expectations coming out of the draft.
Nix ranked 12th in the NFL in passing yards (3,775) and sixth (29) in passing touchdowns.
“[Morton] was — Johnny’s a superstar now,” Lions head coach Dan Campbell said when breaking down the offense’s growth in 2023. “There’s a number of things that he did for us last year that are things that we’ve kept.”
For all of the concern about quarterback Jared Goff under a new coordinator, Morton should bring a sense of familiarity to the Lions offense that allows them to pick up right where they left off as if they would have hired someone already in the building.
This season we saw Goff appear to be even more comfortable airing it out to playmakers like Jameson Williams and Sam LaPorta. Morton isn’t shy about letting his quarterbacks do the same as Nix appeared comfortable last season with shootouts that featured explosive passing plays.
Johnson received a lot of credit, and likely bumped his eventual head coaching stock up by developing flashy, trick plays during his tenure as Lions OC. Though Morton, or anyone else, haven’t shown quite that level of evil genius in their offense, there is at least a little bit of that in his bag as one of the highlights of the Broncos season included a double-reverse pass to get Bo Nix a receiving touchdown in Week 9 against the Ravens.
The creativity shown in this offense, which relied on a rookie quarterback, should be a good sign that Morton will bring his bag to a veteran offense ready to compete for a Super Bowl. His familiarity with the Lions’ playmakers and the organization should set him up for success pretty quickly.
This article was originally published by Usatoday.com. Read the original article here.