Caldwell in prime spot with Lions thanks to Whisenhunt's pass and a lesson from Joe Paterno

ALLEN PARK, Mich. – The Dassault Falcon 900 was all set to go, fueled up and with a flight plan to San Diego in place. The Detroit Lions were ready to go pick up Ken Whisenhunt and hand over a roster that featured Ndamukong Suh anchoring the defense, and Matthew Stafford and Calvin Johnson the offense.

This was in January, after the Lions had just somehow, someway missed the playoffs under head coach Jim Schwartz. They had a 6-3 record in mid-November only to lose six of their final seven. In each of those six games, Detroit led in the fourth quarter, often late. If they avoided blowing just half of those, they win the NFC North. Instead they kept imploding, the product of unforced errors and undisciplined play. It was a recurring nightmare and Schwartz couldn't survive, leaving behind a prime job in an unlikely locale.

Over the past 56 seasons, the Lions have won just a single playoff game and that was in the 1991 season. They've had just one winning season since going 9-7 in 2000 and in 2008 famously finished 0-16. This is the NFL badlands.

Yet while the results were the same, to anyone paying close enough attention, this was different. After a decade of high draft picks, there was talent, experience, depth, a quarterback. It was a playoff team that just didn't happen to make the playoffs.

Conventional wisdom said Whisenhunt, who as a head coach led the Arizona Cardinals to a Super Bowl and at the time was the offensive coordinator of the red-hot San Diego Chargers, was going to take the job.

Only the plane never left the Wayne County airport. Whisenhunt decided instead to become head coach of the Tennessee Titans – the quarterback challenged, talent weak Tennessee Titans.

The Lions went to Plan B, another coach who led his team to the Super Bowl before being fired, a coach known for his calm demeanor, a coach who, like the team he would lead, has something to prove to the league.

A coach, who desperately wanted the job, but watched the Whisenhunt jet saga without a pang of panic.

"I've never concerned myself with whom I am competing against or who they are considering," Jim Caldwell said Thursday from his office at the Lions practice facility. "If I'm the best candidate I think it will work out that way in the long run. We just went on with our business … Obviously I was hoping for an opportunity and this one in particular.

"Fortunately I ended up here," he continued. "I think I was meant to be here. I believe in Providence."

Here's what's undeniable:

Caldwell's Lions are 7-2.

Whisenhunt's Titans are 2-7.

Detroit travels to Arizona to face the Cardinals on Sunday, with first place in the entire NFC on the line. The Lions caught a break due to the injury to Cardinals starting quarterback Carson Palmer. Caldwell has been running around the team facility reminding everyone that nothing has been accomplished, that no one gets anything after nine games in the NFL.

He should know. The 59-year-old started his head coaching career in Indianapolis 14-0 and went on to lose a close Super Bowl. Two seasons later, after Peyton Manning was lost to a neck injury, Caldwell was fired.

Of course, his players should know also … after the promise of last season evaporated.

"We haven't done anything," Caldwell said.

No, not in terms of goals accomplished. What he has done, however, is bring an aura of stability, professionalism and competence to the franchise. It's helped to weather a slew of injuries to key players, everyone from Calvin Johnson to Reggie Bush to Nick Fairley, by taking a mature, next-man-up approach.

Meanwhile, the team that found ways to lose close games a year ago is now winning them, including three consecutive weeks with game-winning scores coming in the final two minutes.

Some of this evens out over time. Caldwell is the last person to say there is a magic formula here. Which doesn't mean it wasn't a point of emphasis.

"I think it boils down to an old Joe Paterno phrase, 'Take care of the little things and the big things will take care of themselves,'" said Caldwell, who spent eight years as an assistant at Penn State. "That's what we focus on very, very hard. We don't just pay it lip service."

His secret, if you will, is his understanding that there is no secret. This isn't a coach-led success story. It's a coach harnessing a ton of talent and helping everyone get out of the way.

"The fundamentals, we work on them every day we practice," Caldwell said. "Because you're going to see different schemes, different ways a team will attack you, but your fundamentals will hold up. You'll understand it well, if you work on them well."

Caldwell spent most of the last two seasons as offensive coordinator of the Baltimore Ravens, helping them to a Super Bowl championship. Last year, in Week 15, the Ravens played the Lions, handing them one of those fourth-quarter collapse loses.

Caldwell spent the week studying the Lions' defense and came to a deep appreciation of just how vicious that unit could be.

"The defensive front," Caldwell said, "… trying to figure out ways to run the ball against them, now that was a difficult task."

It wasn't just the stars such as Suh and Fairley, but the guys he thought were capable of more – "there were a lot of young guys running around playing well at different spots or having the ability to play well," Caldwell said.

And that was just the defense. The offense, with Stafford and Megatron, was just as impressive.

"Maybe the best receiver in all of football and a quarterback who can play the game, who has all the skills and ability, and has proven it," he said. "Running backs in place, a decent tight end core and an offensive line that was certainly plenty capable and had experience."

Caldwell saw not the same old Lions, but a potential powerhouse in waiting.

"Kind of a diamond in the rough," he said. "It was a team that had talent on both sides of the ball. Often times when you go in you'll have talent on one side and the other side will need a lot of additional individuals to come and help.

"I didn't see that being the case with this particular team."

What he saw was a team he wanted to coach.

From 2002 to 2008, Caldwell was the Colts' quarterbacks coach, which is to say Peyton Manning's coach. The good part of that is you get to work with Peyton Manning. The downside is everyone outside the organization thinks Manning is essentially self-coached, calling an audible on every play.

Nothing changed when Caldwell took over as head coach. Credit for success was given to Manning. Then when he got hurt, the wheels came off. That left Caldwell with something still to prove, at least to everyone but himself.

Across the league he's universally hailed for his professionalism and poise, just a good, good man. And forget perceptions. Manning may be his greatest advocate, vocal about what Caldwell meant to his career.

Caldwell certainly doesn't lack for confidence in what he is doing. Asked what he learned after being fired, what he'd changed this time around, and he didn't budge.

"To be honest with you, not a whole lot," he said. "My first year with the Colts wasn't too bad. My second wasn't either. We started out winning 14 games in a row. I'm not certain you change a whole lot from that either.

"But you tweak things and a lot of that has to do with the players you have in your system," he continued. "You have a new staff that has some ideas that maybe you hadn't thought about. So you open yourself up to it. You make some adjustments as well. You learn something every day."

Mostly though, he falls back on Paterno's lesson about little things. He didn't take over a reclamation project. This isn't about an overhaul. Suh and his buddies now lead the league in total defense. Stafford heads an offense that delivers in crunch time. It's all part of what Caldwell envisioned. If other candidates didn't see it, then that's their problem.

"All across the board I thought it was just an excellent opportunity," he said. "That's why I was so excited about it."

Providence, it turned out, was that plane destined for Ken Whisenhunt never leaving the hangar.