We’re in some uncharted territory with the Detroit Lions these days. Once the laughing stock of the league, the Lions are suddenly a team that a lot of the league is trying to emulate. The Commanders being the big one. They’re trying to hire basically everyone in Detroit.
They hired both Lance Newmark and Brandon Sosna away from the Lions recently to fill some pretty big front office roles.
The big fish they tried to reel in from Detroit this offseason was Lions offensive coordinator Ben Johnson. It seemed like there was an insanely high chance that he would be the Commanders head coach in 2024, but then at the last minute he pulled out of the job.
It was the second time he had done that in his career. Johnson pulled himself from the Panthers search the year before when it looked like he was destined to be their new head coach.
One of the initial reactions is Johnson might be costing himself future consideration. That’s clearly not happening since that was the initial take after he turned down the Panthers job and he was the hottest candidate on the market this offseason. He probably will be again in 2025.
When you dig into it, it seems there’s a bigger message here. That message is that candidates should be looking for the right job as opposed to just getting a job. Johnson said as much in his message to fans after he stayed in Detroit.
“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.”
That’s really it right there. It’s not about grabbing the first job that comes your way. It’s about feeling right about the job. One of the big things we heard about the Commanders situation is that Johnson didn’t feel right about it. There was some concern that the Commanders front office was a little cocky and that they were more basketball guys than anything else.