The Lions got off to a horrendous start in 2015 under head coach Jim Caldwell leading them to an eventual 7-9 record. Lions GM Bob Quinn made things clear in regards to Caldwell during a recent Sirius XM interview on Monday (via the Detroit Free Press).
“(I) really have a great working relationship with Jim,” Quinn said. “All of the sets of meetings we had, whether it was when I first got there figuring out our team, leading into free agency, leading into the draft meetings, really felt comfortable with Jim and his staff and their ability to take a player that has a certain skill set and make that fit into the schemes that their running.
“Offense is offense, in my opinion, but defensive scheme-wise you’ve got to have good fits. In New England, we liked big linebackers, we liked big defensive linemen, we played a two-gap style defense. But here in Detroit, I’m really learning how to evaluate the one-gap players. It’s really exciting. It’s something that I’m listening a lot to, to our scouts, our personnel guys and our coaches about what they see and then was able to kind of put those into the decision making process for the draft and free agency and I’ve felt like we’ve added good players on the defensive side as well.”
In my opinion I have never really ever approved of Jim Caldwell’s coaching style and thought the Lions should have went in a different direction. The numbers do not lie in terms of Caldwell’s offense. The Lions offense ranked dead last in rushing yards (1335, 83.4 per game) which is the reason I think Caldwell’s optimal role in coaching is strictly for quarterbacks only. He lacks the creativeness in the running game to take the Lions to the next level. Of course when he was with the Colts winning a lot of games he had Peyton Manning and virtually no running game either.
