Where We Go From Here

[rob_shadows]

Just now, Nnivolcm said:

Caldwell doesn't call the plays.

He's the head coach... Even if he doesn't directly call the plays the gameplan has to be okayed by him so it's still his fault if the play calling is too conservative.

[Nnivolcm]

Just now, rob_shadows said:

He's the head coach... Even if he doesn't directly call the plays the gameplan has to be okayed by him so it's still his fault if the play calling is too conservative.

I would argue that over aggressive play calling lost us the Pittsburgh game this year. Once again, people see Caldwell's demeanor and assume he's more passive than he is.

[Nnivolcm]

Quote

 

Caldwell is 36-28 in four seasons at the helm, which means he's won more often than any other Lions coach in the Super Bowl era. He's made the playoffs twice, and twice took the division title to the final day of the season. He's owned the division, too, going 5-1 this year and 16-8 overall.

His .667 winning percentage in the division is the best by any Lions coach in any four-year period. And they just swept Green Bay for the first time since 1991.

With their 9-7 record Detroit posted back-to-back winning seasons for the first time since 1994-95.

 

http://www.mlive.com/lions/index.ssf/2017/12/quick_observations_from_the_li_6.html#incart_river_index

 

#	Name	Term	Regular season					Playoffs			Awards
			GC	W	L	T	Win%	GC	W	L
Portsmouth Spartans
1	Hal Griffin†	1930	14	5	6	3	.464	–	–	–
Portsmouth Spartans / Detroit Lions
2	George "Potsy" Clark[N 1]	1931–1936	74	48	20	6	.689	1	1	0
3	Earl "Dutch" Clark*	1937–1938	22	14	8	0	.636	–	–	–
4	Gus Henderson†	1939	11	6	5	0	.545	–	–	–
—	George "Potsy" Clark*[N 1]	1940	11	5	5	1	.500	–	–	–
5	Bill Edwards†	1941–1942	14	4	9	1	.321	–	–	–
6	John Karcis†	1942	8	0	8	0	.000	–	–	–
7	Gus Dorais†	1943–1947	53	20	31	2	.396	–	–	–
8	Bo McMillin	1948–1950	36	12	24	0	.333	–	–	–
9	Buddy Parker	1951–1956	72	47	23	2	.667	4	3	1	UPI NFL Coach of the Year (1956)[6]
10	George Wilson	1957–1964	104	53	45	6	.538	2	2	0	AP Coach of the Year (1957)[7]
11	Harry Gilmer†	1965–1966	28	10	16	2	.393	–	–	–
12	Joe Schmidt*	1967–1972	84	43	34	7	.554	1	0	1
13	Don McCafferty	1973	14	6	7	1	.464	–	–	–
14	Rick Forzano†	1974–1976	32	15	17	0	.469	–	–	–
15	Tommy Hudspeth†	1976–1977	24	11	13	0	.458	–	–	–
16	Monte Clark	1978–1984	105	43	61	1	.414	2	0	2
17	Darryl Rogers†	1985–1988	58	18	40	0	.310	–	–	–
18	Wayne Fontes†	1988–1996	133	66	67	0	.496	5	1	4	AP Coach of the Year (1991)[8] Pro Football Weekly Coach of the Year (1991)[9] UPI NFC Coach of the Year (1991)[10]
19	Bobby Ross	1997–2000	57	27	30	0	.474	2	0	2
20	Gary Moeller†	2000	7	4	3	0	.571	–	–	–
21	Marty Mornhinweg†	2001–2002	32	5	27	0	.156	–	–	–
22	Steve Mariucci	2003–2005	43	15	28	0	.349	–	–	–
23	**** Jauron	2005	5	1	4	0	.200	–	–	–
24	Rod Marinelli†	2006–2008	48	10	38	0	.208	–	–	–
25	Jim Schwartz†	2009–2013	80	29	51	0	.363	1	0	1
26	Jim Caldwell	2014–2017	63	35	28	0	.556	2	0	2

 

I know the bar in Detroit is set pretty low as far as head coaches go, but Caldwell has the best winning percentage of any Lions HC since the 50s. We've had two playoff births and two seasons where we went into week 17 with a shot at the division title. I can't remember a more successful 4 year period in my life as a Lions fan. All with sub par talent on a team filled out with mainly Martin Mayhew's busts. I really like what Quinn is doing to add talent to the team, and I think once that talent perforates the roster Caldwell can win in the playoffs. 

 

There appears to be a lot of HCing spots opening up this year, and not many candidates excite me. Seeing as how no coach will have made it past a first contract in Detroit in 20+ years it wouldn't shock me if Detroit wasn't the top coaching candidates top choice. I'd be mortified if we canned Caldwell and ended up with a guy like John Fox or Marvin Lewis because our other choices went else where.

[GetDownandDirty]

I think we should take a look at Jack Del Rio. He had to deal with a crazy owner & a sub par team & still did well. One fault with Caldwell nobody Is talking about is his lack of developing talent. Players have been leaving here after playing sub par & go to a new team with better coaching and they excell! This staff cannot develop young talent. Time to move to the next level.

[SilverNBlackFan]

2 hours ago, GetDownandDirty said:

I think we should take a look at Jack Del Rio. He had to deal with a crazy owner & a sub par team & still did well. 

Lol, oh boy. He had two losing seasons in his 3 years here.  The 2016 team was an anomaly, it was a team that relied on its QB to pull out games in the 4th Q (Matt Stafford and Carr were both 4th quarter magicians last year) and Khalil Mack's greatness. We very easily should've been an 8-8 ball club that year but the ball bounced our way.

He is a defensive guy yet his defenses have consistently been among the worst in the league these past 3 years. He badly mismanaged his coordinators.

2 hours ago, GetDownandDirty said:

One fault with Caldwell nobody Is talking about is his lack of developing talent. Players have been leaving here after playing sub par & go to a new team with better coaching and they excell! This staff cannot develop young talent. Time to move to the next level.

Yet you want to hire Del Rio? Lol. The guy sucks at developing talent. I honestly can't name a single player in the 3 years he was here I would credit him developing. 

Jack Del Rio is as mediocre as it gets. Only had back to back winning seasons once in his 11 years of coaching, which included a 9-7 season. Jim Caldwell is ten times the coach

[teude]

 

https://www.freep.com/story/sports/nfl/lions/2018/01/01/detroit-lions-coaching-search-7-candidates-replace-jim-caldwell/980500001/

 

Interesting names.

[Nnivolcm]

2 hours ago, GetDownandDirty said:

I think we should take a look at Jack Del Rio. 

[Just Want A Title]

I think Nagy from Kansas City and Pat Shurmur from Minnesota should get a look.  Teryl Austin should get some consideration also.

[detfan782004]

Well I see many happy with this move and really not sure it’s wise. Many were hopeful when they fired Fontes many years ago and it took this long to find someone that could actually bring wins again consistently. Be careful what you wish for and hopefully they can find someone as consistent at least as Caldwell and Fontes. 

[SimbaWho]

Spoken like true losers. I'm glad they fired him, he wasn't making the team better imo, the team has talent and the coach doesn't maximize it for his players on this team.

So many content with just being average because we've been bad for forever. Losers man....

Mike Vrabel would be a ridiculously good hire imo, he's going to be a HC somewhere. Dude was smart as a whip as aplayer and it easily translating to the coordinator positon for him, I don't see him having a hard transition to the main gig.

Can Lions also just interview Peyton Manning already? NO I don't know if he's good or bad but it's about the only way we could hire him, giving him his first coaching job, lol.

[SimbaWho]

1 hour ago, Nnivolcm said:

Lol, I read this and was like... Dude seriously If they like him over Marvin Lewis idk if these guys know how to evaluate coaching at all in football. lol. I don't think he's a bad coordinator, or a guy for Cincy/Miami/Giants to bounce themselves off the ground real quick and rebuild but Lions are looking for a guy for the next level, not a bounce back, or rebuild

I don't know who the top 5 coaches are, but Lions MUST get one. They have one of the best "situations" in football right now for an incoming coach.

[Nnivolcm]

1 hour ago, SimbaWho said:

Spoken like true losers. I'm glad they fired him, he wasn't making the team better imo, the team has talent and the coach doesn't maximize it for his players on this team.

So many content with just being average because we've been bad for forever. Losers man....

You were pounding the table for Marvin Lewis, who in his first four years with the Bengals only had one winning season and only one playoff appearance, where they were one and done. Caldwell's first four years with the Lions out performed Lewis and his first four years with the Bengals.

[detfan782004]

1 hour ago, SimbaWho said:

Spoken like true losers. I'm glad they fired him, he wasn't making the team better imo, the team has talent and the coach doesn't maximize it for his players on this team.

So many content with just being average because we've been bad for forever. Losers man....

Mike Vrabel would be a ridiculously good hire imo, he's going to be a HC somewhere. Dude was smart as a whip as aplayer and it easily translating to the coordinator positon for him, I don't see him having a hard transition to the main gig.

Can Lions also just interview Peyton Manning already? NO I don't know if he's good or bad but it's about the only way we could hire him, giving him his first coaching job, lol.

So you are calling us losers? Simply based on fact many of us older fans have seen this before and understand that sometimes a firing like this isn’t all that great? 

[SimbaWho]

Hahaha chill man. Love the emotion but I have no idea about your life situations or styles. In sports to me it's just a losers mentality to be ok with average and not looking constantly to get better. I just feel like you'll lose whatever your doing if "you're afraid" it can get worst when you know what you have isn't better than the guys your competing against for titles. I'm also just very confident this team can't be much better than a fringe playoff team under Jim Caldwell, and I'm not afraid to go look for better when we've got the best QB we've ever had in the last 50 years. It's now time to get good/great and Caldwell wasn't it. I think it was pretty clear he wasn't going to be great, he could give you a competitive team most weeks but it was almost a given he would get out coached/schemed in games against other talented teams with good coaches. Getting a competitive team around week to week is a solid attribute, especially for a rebuilding team with young players learning how to become professionals, but honestly, imo Lions are past this and have been since Caldwell was hired, They didn't fire Jim Schwartz to rebuild, it was to get better which they might of marginally, but again, it's time for another step this time a BIG one, THE step. It's the last chance/coaching staff we'll have with Matthew Stafford Very good/borderline great at times. We've got a 2-5 year window.

[SimbaWho]

2 hours ago, Nnivolcm said:

You were pounding the table for Marvin Lewis, who in his first four years with the Bengals only had one winning season and only one playoff appearance, where they were one and done. Caldwell's first four years with the Lions out performed Lewis and his first four years with the Bengals.

Well if you unfocused the micro-scope a bit, most people would understand the situations both walked into are a lot different.

If you want to say fruit is fruit, you're right, but there is a difference between an apple and a strawberry.