{"id":859374,"date":"2026-04-07T17:18:17","date_gmt":"2026-04-07T17:18:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/859374\/"},"modified":"2026-04-07T17:18:17","modified_gmt":"2026-04-07T17:18:17","slug":"execs-more-concerned-about-detroit-lions-coaches-than-2026-roster","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/859374\/","title":{"rendered":"Execs More Concerned About Detroit Lions Coaches Than 2026 Roster"},"content":{"rendered":"<p id=\"inline-text-1\" class=\"my-[18px] [&amp;_a]:text-primary my-f-1.5\" q:key=\"0\" q:id=\"6g\">This offseason for the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.si.com\/nfl\/lions\/onsi\/all\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Detroit Lions <\/a>was about getting younger and retooling a roster that featured a solid core group of players. <\/p>\n<p id=\"inline-text-2\" class=\"my-[18px] [&amp;_a]:text-primary my-f-1.5\" q:key=\"0\" q:id=\"6j\">The first phase of free agency saw the team<a href=\"https:\/\/www.si.com\/nfl\/lions\/onsi\/news\/insider-reveals-lions-mock-draft-targets-dan-campbell-player\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\"> bolster the secondary<\/a> and add depth to several key position groups. <\/p>\n<p id=\"inline-text-3\" class=\"my-[18px] [&amp;_a]:text-primary my-f-1.5\" q:key=\"0\" q:id=\"6m\">While the front office did not offer up many long-term contracts to free agents, the objective of adding competition on both sides of the football was met. <\/p>\n<p id=\"inline-text-4\" class=\"my-[18px] [&amp;_a]:text-primary my-f-1.5\" q:key=\"0\" q:id=\"6p\">In a recent piece that highlighted NFL executives discussing free agency, the Lions&#8217; 2026 roster was not the primary area of concern. <\/p>\n<p id=\"inline-text-5\" class=\"my-[18px] [&amp;_a]:text-primary my-f-1.5\" q:key=\"0\" q:id=\"6s\">\u201cThe biggest questions with Detroit remain on the coaching staff,\u201d an exec shared,  via <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/athletic\/7167213\/2026\/04\/03\/nfl-free-agency-2026-nfc-execs-best-worst\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">The Athletic<\/a>. \u201cLet\u2019s see what (Drew) Petzing and (Mike) Kafka are able to infuse in terms of better ideas, better execution, more creative play calling or whatever.\u201d<\/p>\n<p id=\"inline-text-7\" class=\"my-[18px] [&amp;_a]:text-primary my-f-1.5\" q:key=\"0\" q:id=\"6z\">Dan Campbell shared recently<a href=\"https:\/\/www.si.com\/nfl\/lions\/onsi\/news\/insider-reveals-lions-mock-draft-targets-dan-campbell-player\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\"> his excitement level<\/a> about the new additions on offenses. <\/p>\n<p id=\"inline-text-8\" class=\"my-[18px] [&amp;_a]:text-primary my-f-1.5\" q:key=\"0\" q:id=\"72\">&#8220;Kafka, interim head coach, OC, coached quarterbacks. I just feel like the sky is the limit for him,&#8221; said Campbell. &#8220;He\u2019s been a great addition, he\u2019s gonna be a great addition moving forward.\u201d<\/p>\n<p id=\"inline-text-9\" class=\"my-[18px] [&amp;_a]:text-primary my-f-1.5\" q:key=\"0\" q:id=\"75\">A different executive highlighted what many thought about free agency, indicating the team did not do anything significantly notable. <\/p>\n<p id=\"inline-text-10\" class=\"my-[18px] [&amp;_a]:text-primary my-f-1.5\" q:key=\"0\" q:id=\"78\">\u201cTo me, they did not do anything notable from a personnel standpoint outside of some special teams guys they added, which I think were pretty good for them,\u201d the exec explained. <\/p>\n<p>Evaluating what went wrong in 2025 and figuring out how to fix it<\/p>\n<p id=\"inline-text-12\" class=\"my-[18px] [&amp;_a]:text-primary my-f-1.5\" q:key=\"0\" q:id=\"7e\">Detroit has now completed their review of last season. The coaching staff and front office are now tasked with learning from past mistakes, but at the same time not veering off too much from what has made the team successful the last few seasons. <\/p>\n<p id=\"inline-text-13\" class=\"my-[18px] [&amp;_a]:text-primary my-f-1.5\" q:key=\"0\" q:id=\"7h\">Speaking with Fox 2 Detroit, Campbell shared the challenges of identifying areas to improve, while also remaining true to core tenets. <\/p>\n<p id=\"inline-text-14\" class=\"my-[18px] [&amp;_a]:text-primary my-f-1.5\" q:key=\"0\" q:id=\"7k\">\u201cYou always have to go back and look at yourself and say, \u2018Alright, what did we do well? What did we not?\u2019 We\u2019ve got to be careful,&#8221; said Campbell. &#8220;Yeah, we\u2019ve won some games here, but this could be an issue. This could be an issue the further you go, you get <a href=\"https:\/\/www.si.com\/nfl\/lions\/onsi\/news\/insider-reveals-lions-mock-draft-targets-dan-campbell-player\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">into the playoffs<\/a> and things of that nature. It\u2019s no secret when you get to where we were last year, or when you fall to where we went to, it makes you hyper focused on looking at everything from top to bottom.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p id=\"inline-text-15\" class=\"my-[18px] [&amp;_a]:text-primary my-f-1.5\" q:key=\"0\" q:id=\"7n\">While Detroit still had a winning record last season, the coaching staff and front office has still fully evauated what went right for the team and areas that must be improved. <\/p>\n<p id=\"inline-text-16\" class=\"my-[18px] [&amp;_a]:text-primary my-f-1.5\" q:key=\"0\" q:id=\"7q\">&#8220;Even in the things you think you know, you\u2019re not gonna take that for granted. No, no, no, we\u2019re gonna look at every little thing,&#8221; said Campbell. &#8220;But at the same time, don\u2019t overreact because ultimately we were one play away from getting in the playoffs, and once you get in anything can happen.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"This offseason for the Detroit Lions was about getting younger and retooling a roster that featured a solid&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":859375,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2071],"tags":[146,113,2506,7,147,6],"class_list":{"0":"post-859374","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-detroitlions","11":"tag-football","12":"tag-lions","13":"tag-nfl"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/116364568516136362","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/859374","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=859374"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/859374\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/859375"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=859374"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=859374"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=859374"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}