Ben Johnson's unexpected return means Detroit Lions will make another run at Super Bowl
The snow came down hard and heavy Tuesday in Detroit. The roads were a mess on yet another gray Midwestern day, a perfect match for the gloomy outlook of Detroiters and Detroit Lions fans trying to salvage what they could from coming up four points shy of reaching the franchise's first Super Bowl.
“Hey, it was a great season,” a friend at my gym told me while trying to find a silver lining amid all that gray.
Then it happened. News broke in the afternoon that offensive coordinator Ben Johnson is staying with the Lions. The NFL’s hottest coaching commodity for the past two seasons reportedly told the Seattle Seahawks and the Washington Commanders he wasn’t interested.
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And just like that, the clouds parted. The sun broke through and rainbows of Honolulu Blue sprang up around Detroit. Children laughed. Men cried. Dogs and cats high-fived each other.
Because this one act, this one inexplicable, unforeseen decision can mean only one thing. The Lions will be right back in the thick of another Super Bowl run next season.
Without Johnson, the Lions still would have had enough personnel in place — among players, coaches and executives — to contend for a playoff spot, if not a division title.
But the road would have been much harder without their offensive genius. And I can prove it with just two words: Anthony Lynn.
He was Dan Campbell’s original choice as offensive coordinator in 2021, even though he already had Johnson on staff as tight ends coach. Lynn’s eight-game tenure as the Lions’ play-caller was a disaster: The Lions averaged just 16.8 points and 321.1 yards per game.
Campbell took over play-calling duties midway through the 2021 season and at least had the wisdom to promote Johnson to pass-game coordinator. He promoted Johnson to OC for the 2022 season, but he didn’t officially give him play-calling duties.
Johnson, of course, still called the plays and was a marvel out of the gate. The Lions scored 35 points in the opener, then 36, then a season-high 45 points in the fourth game. They finished fourth in yards and fifth in points at 26.6 per game in 2022. In 2023, it got better: third in yards and fifth in points (27.1).
He also resurrected Jared Goff’s career, which looked like it was headed for the trash heap after the Rams kicked him to the curb and Lynn kept him there. In the eight games with Lynn, Goff had eight touchdowns and six interceptions. In his final six games of 2021, with Campbell and Johnson, he had 11 touchdowns and two interceptions. The next two seasons under Johnson: 59 TDs and 19 picks.
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The problem is that Campbell couldn’t see any of this for the first nine months of his tenure. He had Superman on his staff, but he was using him to move furniture.
What further called Campbell’s evaluation skills into question was that he never gave a good answer for why Lynn was so terrible. “We never found our groove or our rhythm, if you will,” he said after the 2021 season, “and it’s hard to really, truly pinpoint (why).”
Campbell is a fantastic coach and he isn’t naïve enough to think he will never have to replace Johnson. I’m sure he’s had a strong idea for a while about who might take Johnson’s place.
But for now, Campbell doesn’t have to worry about that scenario for at least another season.
As for the reasons for Johnson’s decision, we’ll never be given a clear answer. But what makes the most sense, in any contractual issue, is money. He reportedly wanted around $15 million annually, a high price for a first-time head coach that “spooked some teams,” according to ESPN.
Of course, there will be plenty of spin and malarky about “unfinished business” and “loyalty” and wanting to win a Super Bowl, blah, blah, blah.
No. That’s not it. Johnson knows his value and it sounds like he’s willing to wait for the perfect scenario: Great salary, great draft situation, the right owner, the right general manager. Maybe there were even other demands. Maybe some form of roster control or other perks that couldn’t be hammered out.
But this is not about the Lions. It’s about Johnson and the future he envisions for himself and his family. Maybe there’s a private reason he will never reveal. Only Johnson knows the truth, but you have to figure he has a great grasp of what the right future entails.
As a math whiz with a brilliant analytical mind, Johnson surely has gone through at least the similar time-and-money calculus that the Tigers went through Tuesday morning when they explained why they were guaranteeing Colt Keith $28.6 million before his first at-bat in the majors.
The Tigers’ decision isn’t entirely dissimilar to an NFL team offering a big contract to a promising play-caller before he has actually run a team. These decisions are, at their core, an act of faith because they are extremely hard to predict. What is in someone’s heart and mind is unknowable to anyone else.
What Johnson should bear in mind, after backing out of three late interviews and potential offers in two years, is that he could be scaring off future suitors. It’s a potential worry for him — though knowing how desperate and unoriginal the NFL tends to be about hiring coordinators from winning teams, and well-known retreads, it’s probably not much of a worry.
So we can all take our guesses about why Johnson is staying with the Lions, the same way we can wonder what the weather will look like over the next few weeks and beyond. Surely it will be warm, sunny and full of hope — at least, if you ask a Lions fan.
Contact Carlos Monarrez: cmonarrez@freepress.com. Follow him on Twitter @cmonarrez.
This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Detroit Lions a lock to make Super Bowl run with Ben Johnson's return
