Dan Campbell of the Detroit Lions.
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The Detroit Lions came closer than ever expected to losing an important piece of their coaching staff during the NFL offseason.
The Detroit Lions already lost their offensive and defensive coordinators after the 2024-25 season when Ben Johnson went to the Chicago Bears and Aaron Glenn went to the New York Jets. It would have been nothing short of a calamity to lost yet another key coach during the 2025-26 offseason.
Of course, the Lions actually hired a coach in offensive coordinator Drew Petzing. He’s made it clear that he’s happy to be with the team and especially to work with quarterback Jared Goff.
“Immensely, and I think that’s one of the biggest draws of the job, the opportunity to work with him day in and day out,” Petzing said to reporters about how thrilled he is to work with Goff during a talk on Tuesday, February 24, at NFL Combine.
Petzing added, “And I said this, I can’t remember who I said it to, but he’s very much like having an extra coach on the staff, just in terms of how much he’s seen, the way he thinks about the game, how hard he works at it.”
But, the Detroit Lions almost had to start from scratch with another key coach. It’s interesting how close they came to losing this coach, too.
Detroit Lions Nearly Lost Their Defensive Coordinator to the Sunshine State
Detroit Lions defensive coordinator Kelvin Sheppard has only been with the team for one season, but he’s already garnered head coach interest. Sheppard is expected to be a head coach at some point, but it almost happened sooner than expected.
Sheppard already landed a head coach interview this cycle, and it was for the Miami Dolphins. They interviewed him and Patrick Graham, and then they hired former Green Bay Packers defensive coordinator Jeff Hafley as their new head coach that same day.
Because of the odd timing, some thought the Dolphins were just going through the motions with the interviews, but as it turns out, they were serious about wanting Sheppard as a candidate.
At the NFL Combine on Tuesday, February 24, Miami general manager Jon-Eric Sullivan said Sheppard was a real candidate for the job and he “will be a head coach in this league one day.” The team, he says, was genuinely interested in him.
“I think if you want to build a bully, Kelvin, he can lead men,” Sullivan said. “There was a toughness and a command that he had, and his ability to articulate that.”
Detroit Lions Coach Gave ‘Really Impressive’ Interview for Head Coach Role
He added, “And it wasn’t false bravado. I mean, he walked out of the room and we all kind of looked at each other like, ‘Wow, that was really impressive.’ I have no doubt as he gets down the road in his career, he’ll have a lot of opportunities.”
Sheppard also commented on it, and according to Dave Birkett of the Detroit Free Press, said that while he wasn’t “going to disclose the things that I was told,” it was “just about as real as it can get when Hafley calls somebody on my staff and says, ‘Those people were about to hire Kelvin.’ I mean, I don’t know why people would make this stuff up, but I think it’s as real as it can get.”
In a Friday, February 27, feature, Brad Berreman of SideLion Report says that it would have been a “disaster” to lose Sheppard, adding that “it appears the Lions almost lost a coordinator to a head coaching job in back-to-back offseasons.”