Why Lions OC Ben Johnson Decided to Return to Detroit

• Ben Johnson is returning to the Detroit Lions for the 2024 season.

That’s a line I didn’t think I’d be writing three weeks ago. It’s an outcome very few folks in NFL circles expected to see back then. But, today, Johnson told the Washington Commanders and Seattle Seahawks he’s staying in Detroit as offensive coordinator.

A year ago, Johnson removed his name from consideration for head-coaching jobs, with the Carolina Panthers prominent among them. The Lions talked to him about a raise at the time (one they wound up giving him), assuring him that a good option was waiting for him on the other end of the process if he didn’t feel exactly right about the teams that were pursuing him or the timing of the opportunities.

I don’t think Detroit was sitting there this time trying to dissuade him from going to the Commanders, Seahawks or any other team. But at this point, I do think it’s implicitly understood that Johnson has a home with a team that loves him, and a job he’s going to be able to do at a very high level, protecting his coaching stock from plummeting between now and January 2025.

So that’s a factor.

Then, there’s the flip side. Washington really liked Johnson. But this was no fait accompli. In fact, as I’d heard it, the Commanders were hitting a soft reset in their process this week, looking to go with in-person interviews, and open-minded to wherever those talks would take them. The Seahawks, who are getting to meet with Baltimore Ravens defensive coordinator Mike Macdonald for the first time, are taking the same approach, too. And for all of his strengths, Johnson didn’t knock his first interview with Washington out of the park.

Add it all up, and it is understandable why Johnson would decide to go back to the Lions for another year. That said, there’s also risk: Young assistants don’t always stay hot in these situations, and as hot as Johnson’s name has been, he’s certainly not exempt from that.

• Points to the Pittsburgh Steelers for their level of aggression in landing ex-Falcons coach Arthur Smith to be their new offensive coordinator—a big-time hire in every sense of the term.

Smith actually had traveled to the Maldives for a little reset with his wife, as he considered his plans to restart his career after being fired in Atlanta. As they were away, interest intensified with a half-dozen teams reaching out to talk to him about coming aboard as an assistant. Smith wanted to go to a place that would offer stability, and a chance to learn from the head coach, and Pittsburgh offered both of those things. So he gave Mike Tomlin his word that the Steelers would be his first visit after returning from the Indian Ocean.

He met with Tomlin on Monday and into Tuesday, with plans to travel to Tampa on Tuesday night and interview for the Tampa Bay Buccaneers OC job. But with Smith’s run-game ingenuity, overall offensive creativity, and work with quarterbacks, the Steelers and Tomlin saw the fit, and then worked to make sure he wouldn’t get on the plane to Florida.

• I don’t think the Los Angeles Chargers could’ve found a better match for Jim Harbaugh than Ravens director of player personnel Joe Hortiz—a low-ego scout’s scout who’ll come in and help set the table for the vision Harbaugh has for the Chargers. Hortiz, of course, has worked with John Harbaugh for the past 16 seasons. But the connection here goes well beyond that.

Hortiz also built a strong relationship with Jim Harbaugh after years of doing school calls at Michigan, where the Wolverines, for obvious reasons, would roll out the red carpet when folks from Baltimore came to evaluate players.

Then, there’s the connections Hortiz has to the presumed staff in L.A. If Greg Roman’s the offensive coordinator, as expected, Hortiz will bring four years of experience scouting for a Roman-driven offense (2019-22). And with Jesse Minter expected to run the Chargers defense, the dots connect, too—Hortiz just scouted for Mike Macdonald’s scheme, which is the scheme Macdonald handed to Minter two years ago, when Minter took his place as Michigan’s DC. Hortiz also worked with Minter’s mentor, Wink Martindale, for years.

So, yes, the Chargers GM hire makes all the sense in the world, the same way Harbaugh bringing Minter and strength coach Ben Herbert with him from Michigan. Which is to say, on paper at least, Harbaugh’s doing what he’s always done, in putting together a loaded-for-bear staff to go at the new job.

• The Houston Texans essentially just did with Bobby Slowik what the Lions did with Johnson last year—making a good situation for a young coach even better in letting that coach know he didn’t have to jump if the opportunities out there weren’t quite right for him.

Houston, per sources, negotiated a new deal with a significant raise for Slowik over the past few days, and pushed it over the goal line just as Washington and Seattle (both of whom interviewed him on Jan. 21) ramped up the final phase of their head coaching searches. I don’t know if Slowik would’ve landed one of those jobs, but it was smart of Houston to do what it needed to keep C.J. Stroud’s play-caller in place as the burgeoning star quarterback looks to build on a monster rookie year.

And it’s another sign, to me, that GM Nick Caserio and coach DeMeco Ryans are doing the right things, over and over again, for their young quarterback. Last year, one example was how they shot down trade overtures for Case Keenum at the roster cutdown, just before Week 1, because they felt like Keenum’s presence was great for Stroud. This, of course, would be another example of a good investment in a potentially great young signal-caller.

• There are fewer and fewer coaches here in Mobile for Senior Bowl week every year—which only made it more notable seeing first-year Panthers coach Dave Canales in attendance at practice. He and newly promoted GM Dan Morgan were attached at the hip on Tuesday, and it sure looks like this was a good chance for the two to start to re-learn each other’s ways (they worked down the hall from each other in Seattle for eight years) and try to hit the ground running as a tandem.

• The New Orleans Saints will have ex-Bears OC Luke Getsy in Wednesday to interview, as their exhaustive search for a new offensive coordinator continues. Getsy’s name has heated up on the circuit over the past week or so—he interviewed with the New England Patriots on Tuesday, and the Raiders late last week.

• So who will be the highest drafted player from this year’s Senior Bowl crop? I asked around and got four names—two were tackles (Oklahoma’s Tyler Guyton and Oregon State’s Taliese Fuaga), one was an edge player (UCLA’s Laiatu Latu) and one was a corner (Toledo’s Quinyon Mitchell).

• And of course, the quarterbacks will be scrutinized. Along those lines, Washington’s Michael Penix Jr. had a decent Tuesday on the practice field, according to a few scouts I talked to. The rest of the guys at his position? Not so good (Though the first day is usually kind of subpar for quarterbacks here).

• Wanna wrap up with one more thing on Patrick Mahomes’s greatness? Here’s Matt Nagy, when I mentioned how it seemed, to me at least, like the quarterback was taking the whole “he hasn’t won on the road in the playoffs” thing personally.

“Yeah, he builds it up all week long with his focus and his commitment to just kind of knowing, Okay, you want to doubt us. You want to doubt us,” Nagy said. “The greats do that. They create an edge. He did that. The special players do it on the field, and he followed it up with a great performance. At the end, he goes to sleep at night dreaming of that moment that happened on third down. He dreams of that. Guys dream of it, but don't make it happen. He dreams of it and makes it happen. That's what's so cool.”

Cool, indeed.