{"id":723463,"date":"2026-02-02T09:54:07","date_gmt":"2026-02-02T09:54:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/723463\/"},"modified":"2026-02-02T09:54:07","modified_gmt":"2026-02-02T09:54:07","slug":"2-coaches-the-detroit-lions-could-use-on-their-defensive-staff-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/723463\/","title":{"rendered":"2 coaches the Detroit Lions could use on their defensive staff"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Detroit Lions have made a ton of fans happy this offseason by overturning their offensive staff at the top. They opted to fire offensive coordinator John Morton and replace him with Drew Petzing. While the Petzing hire itself wasn\u2019t all that popular with fans\u2014earning mostly Bs, Cs, and Ds in our fan vote<\/a>\u2014people were feeling a lot better after Detroit reportedly added Mike Kafka to the staff in a currently unnamed role.<\/p>\n

But I can sense a growing concern that the Lions haven\u2019t done anything on the defensive side of the ball yet. It\u2019s obvious defensive coordinator Kelvin Sheppard isn\u2019t going anywhere, but people are yearning for some sort of addition to help out the young coordinator and provide some new ideas to the Lions\u2019 side of the ball that had even more struggles than the offense last year. Are the Lions seeking out someone like that? It\u2019s impossible to know right now, because they tend to operate in the shadows for their coaching hires.<\/p>\n

Additionally, it\u2019s very hard to predict which coaches would be available for this hypothetical role with Detroit. There are still upwards of 10 defensive coordinator vacancies across the league<\/a> still, and it\u2019s unclear how many defensive coaches would be willing to take on an assistant role with Detroit.<\/p>\n

But, for now, let\u2019s dream and\/or get creative. Today\u2019s Question of the Day is:<\/p>\n

Who is a coach you\u2019d like to see added to the defensive staff?<\/p>\n

My answer: I listed four candidates on this week\u2019s Midweek Mailbag podcast<\/a>. But I\u2019ll mention my favorite from there, plus one more that I\u2019ve seen other people recommend that makes sense.<\/p>\n

The latter is Chuck Pagano. He would check a lot of boxes. First, he\u2019s at the stage of his career where he would likely take a senior defensive assistant role. After a handful of seasons off, Pagano was the Ravens\u2019 senior defensive senior defensive assistant\/secondary coach last year, but it\u2019s unclear if he\u2019ll have a role under new Ravens head coach Jesse Minter.<\/p>\n

More importantly, Pagano already has a very strong connection with Sheppard from when Pagano coached him with the Colts. The Lions defensive coordinator has listed him as a heavy influence on him, and even said if he knew Pagano was going to coach last year, he would\u2019ve tried to bring him on the Lions\u2019 staff.<\/p>\n

\u201cChuck Pagano is another guy, he now joined Baltimore. I told him, if that fire was still lit, I wish he would\u2019ve told me\u2014I would\u2019ve tried to bring him to Detroit,\u201d Sheppard said at last year\u2019s NFL Combine.<\/p>\n

The other coach I\u2019m thinking of is a very different direction to go. It\u2019s a younger mind that has a connection with two people on the Lions\u2019 staff: Giants interim defensive coordinator Charlie Bullen.<\/p>\n

Bullen coached the Dolphins with Dan Campbell back in 2012-15, acting as the team\u2019s assistant defensive line coach. More interestingly, Bullen was the Giants\u2019 outside linebackers coach last season, before being promoted midseason to defensive coordinator. Who was the person who made that decision? The Giants\u2019 interim head coach who is now on the Lions\u2019 staff, Mike Kafka. Clearly Kafka had enough respect for Bullen to give him the late-season promotion, and the Giants defense responded with a strong finish to the season, particularly with their young pass rusher Abdul Carter, who had this to say about Bullen.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe inspires us. When he holds guys accountable, he doesn\u2019t call guys out, he calls guys up… If I had to pick a defensive coordinator, I would say Chuck.\u201d<\/p>\n

If the Lions want to add an up-and-coming defensive coach that now has some serious experience in improving a pass rush and future defensive coordinator potential, Bullen would be an interesting option. The Giants do have interest in retaining him, and he\u2019s received some defensive coordinator interview requests, so it\u2019s unclear if Detroit has a realistic shot at him, but he would be a nice boost.<\/p>\n

Which coach would you like to see added to the Lions\u2019 defensive staff? Share some answers in the comment section at the bottom of the page.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Detroit Lions have made a ton of fans happy this offseason by overturning their offensive staff at…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":723464,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2071],"tags":[146,113,52105,84539,1262,2506,7,147,6],"class_list":{"0":"post-723463","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-conversation-starters-and-community-questions","11":"tag-detroit-lions-discussion","12":"tag-detroit-lions-opinion","13":"tag-detroitlions","14":"tag-football","15":"tag-lions","16":"tag-nfl"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/116000435091961375","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/723463","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=723463"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/723463\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/723464"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=723463"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=723463"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=723463"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}