On Friday, the New York Jets announced that they had conducted eight interviews for their vacant defensive coordinator position after firing Steve Wilks in the middle of the 2025 season. Among those eight candidates was current Detroit Lions defensive assistant\/safeties coach Jim O\u2019Neil.<\/p>\n
O\u2019Neil has only been with the Lions since 2024, but he has overseen one of the team\u2019s best position groups. Under O\u2019Neil, the Lions developed the young careers of Pro Bowler Brian Branch and All-Pro Kerby Joseph. Of course, that year O\u2019Neil also overlapped with Aaron Glenn, who is now the coach of the Jets, but was the Lions\u2019 defensive coordinator at the time.<\/p>\n
If O\u2019Neil gets the job, it wouldn\u2019t be the first time as a defensive coordinator. In fact, he has a pretty extensive history at the position. He served in that role for the Cleveland Browns (2014-15), San Francisco 49ers (2016), and Northwestern Wildcats (2021-22).<\/p>\n
Other candidates who have interviewed for the position are Dolphins cornerback coach Mathieu Araujo, Browns safeties coach Ephraim Banda, Packers defensive line coach Demarcus Covington, Jets DB coach\/interim defensive coordinator Chris Harris, Vikings defensive pass game coordinator Daronte Jones, Broncos assistant head coach\/defensive pass game coordinator Jim Leonhard, and former Michigan defensive coordinator Wink Martindale.<\/p>\n
O\u2019Neil is the latest Lions employee to get opportunities elsewhere. Defensive coordinator Kelvin Sheppard was requested to interview for the Dolphins\u2019 head coach job, David Shaw interviewed for the Buccaneers\u2019 offensive coordinator position, and Jett Modkins interviewed for the Bucs\u2019 special teams coordinator job.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"On Friday, the New York Jets announced that they had conducted eight interviews for their vacant defensive coordinator…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":683105,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2071],"tags":[146,113,37982,153,2506,7,147,6],"class_list":{"0":"post-683104","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-detroit-lions","8":"tag-detroit","9":"tag-detroit-lions","10":"tag-detroit-lions-coaching-news-rumors","11":"tag-detroit-lions-news","12":"tag-detroitlions","13":"tag-football","14":"tag-lions","15":"tag-nfl"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/115907875992696429","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/683104","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=683104"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/683104\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/683105"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=683104"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=683104"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=683104"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}