{"id":771432,"date":"2026-02-23T16:51:12","date_gmt":"2026-02-23T16:51:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/771432\/"},"modified":"2026-02-23T16:51:12","modified_gmt":"2026-02-23T16:51:12","slug":"ben-johnson-detroit-lions-drew-petzing-a-match-made-in-heaven","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/771432\/","title":{"rendered":"Ben Johnson: Detroit Lions, Drew Petzing \u2018a match made in heaven\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1nfb3k4i _16w9vov1 _16w9vov0 ls9zuh1\">One of the quirkiest facts about new Detroit Lions offensive coordinator Drew Petzing is that he is good friends with former Lions OC (and current Bears coach) Ben Johnson. He was even at Johnson\u2019s wedding.<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1nfb3k4i _16w9vov1 _16w9vov0 ls9zuh1\">Birkett chatted with Johnson about the Lions\u2019 hiring of Petzing, and the former Lions coordinator gave some high praise for the new Lions hire.<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1nfb3k4i _16w9vov1 _16w9vov0 ls9zuh1\">\u201cI think he\u2019s going to blow those players away just from a knowledge standpoint, from a connection standpoint,\u201d Johnson said. \u201cI fully expect that offense to be clicking at a high level next year. It wouldn\u2019t surprise me one bit, and I think there\u2019s a reason why Dan (Campbell), from what I could gather, cast a wide net for the offensive coordinator job and Drew hit the right notes in terms of what he was looking for.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1nfb3k4i _16w9vov1 _16w9vov0 ls9zuh1\">Johnson\u2019s opinion obviously carries a ton of weight. Not only does he know Petzing well, but he knows exactly what Lions head coach Dan Campbell is looking for and the kind of people he works well with. He believes that pairing is going to work well in Detroit.<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1nfb3k4i _16w9vov1 _16w9vov0 ls9zuh1\">\u201cI could see this being a great fit knowing Dan and knowing Drew both. I think it\u2019s probably a match made in heaven,\u201d Johnson said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1nfb3k4i _16w9vov1 _16w9vov0 ls9zuh1\">\u201cThe only thing I said (to him) is I\u2019m a better-looking Lions offensive coordinator,\u201d Petzing joked.<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1nfb3k4i _16w9vov1 _16w9vov0 ls9zuh1\">Johnson, too, took the high road.<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1nfb3k4i _16w9vov1 _16w9vov0 ls9zuh1\">\u201cI think it\u2019s a really smart decision by Dan. It\u2019s going to be hopefully not too big of a headache on us, but I see it being a really good match,\u201d Johnson said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"One of the quirkiest facts about new Detroit Lions offensive coordinator Drew Petzing is that he is good&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":771433,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[153,1889,7,6],"class_list":{"0":"post-771432","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nfl","8":"tag-detroit-lions-news","9":"tag-detroit-lions-quotes","10":"tag-football","11":"tag-nfl"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/116120983192113439","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/771432","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=771432"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/771432\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/771433"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=771432"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=771432"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=771432"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}