Three head coaching interviews are planned for coordinators with the Detroit Lions.
As the Detroit Lions were still upset about their loss in the NFC Championship game on Monday morning, Tom Pelissero said that quarterbacks coach Ben Johnson and defensive assistant Aaron Glenn will both be interviewed for top coaching jobs later this week.
Pelissero says that Johnson will have an interview via the Seattle Seahawks in Detroit later on Monday. Then, on Tuesday, both Johnson and Glenn will be questioned by the Washington Commanders.
The Commanders and the Seahawks are the only two teams still looking for a head coach in the NFL this season.
Pelissero says that most of the candidates are no longer in the running for the job because they aren’t in the playoffs. This means that the final coach hires will probably be made by the conclusion of the week.
Pelissero said, “That may be the last interview for a head coach this cycle.” Now all of those guys are qualified to be hired right away here. These searches will likely be over by the end of the week, or maybe within the next 48 hours.
NFL Fans knew Black Monday would happen, and it did. Many head coaches, coordinators, general managers, and key support staff no longer have jobs.
Matt Patricia, the defensive coordinator for the New England Patriots, is still the front-runner for the job, even though he is said to want to work for the New York Giants instead.
Teryl Austin had been the first of six people interviewed for the job as head coach of the Detroit Lions after the season. He knew he didn’t have a good chance of getting the job, though.
“I interviewed within Detroit, but it probably wasn’t going to happen because of what happened with our staff,”
Austin said Thursday at a news conference to accept his new job as defensive coordinator for the Cincinnati Bengals.
The Lions still don’t have a coach, but Austin took himself out of the running for replacing Jim Caldwell this week when he accepted a job with the Bengals.
The Lions have also talked to Mike Vrabel, the defensive coordinator for the Houston Texans, Winston Moss, the associate head coach for the Green Bay Packers, Pat Shurmur, the offensive coordinator for the Minnesota Vikings, and Jim Bob Cooter, who works for the team.
Steve Wilks is the defensive coordinator for the Carolina Panthers. The Lions asked for permission to talk to him last week, but he does not have time to talk to them right now.
Austin, 52, has been in charge of the Lions’ defense for the past four years, during which time the team won two wildcard spots. In 2014, his first season as coordinator, the Lions had the second-best defense in the NFL.
This year, they were third in the entire NFL in takeaways. Austin had interviews with 10 different teams while he was in Detroit. He has been a popular candidate for head coach in recent years.
After the 2015 season, he said he thought two of the interviews he had were just to meet the Rooney Rule, which says teams have to interview a minimum of one minority candidate for the position of head coach as well as general manager jobs.
At his news conference on Thursday, Austin said, “Those comments were how I felt about that year, and I think at the time that there were a few interviews that weren’t—how’s that? I didn’t put my best foot forward?” The best way to say it.
“Sometimes you can tell when things are good, and in some of those interviews, it wasn’t show of the Miller Rule (that I didn’t get the job), it was cause I failed to perform very well,” said Austin.
Sometimes, though, it seemed like they were just saying, “Hey, let’s check this box and move on.”
But I think that going forward, if I get another chance, or if things work out the way I want them to, I will get it. If not, I’ll move on. I’ll coach the guys the best I can and see what happens next.