Report: Detroit Lions to hire Mark DeLeone as LB coach
ESPN’s Field Yates is reporting that the Detroit Lions are planning to hire former Chicago Bears inside linebackers coach Mark DeLeone as their linebackers coach for the 2021 season.
“Another quality add for Dan Campbell’s staff in Detroit, as he’s bringing Mark DeLeone as his LB coach, hiring him away from the same job with the Bears,” Yates said. “DeLeone is a strong hire after helping Roquan Smith to his best season yet this past year in Chicago.”
DeLeone will turn 34-years-old this summer, but he has already been in the business for 14 seasons, including eight in the NFL. A defensive student assistant at Iowa in 2007-8, he found assistant coaching jobs at New Hampshire, Florida, and Temple, before the New York Jets hired him as a defensive assistant in 2012.
After a year in New York, DeLeone joined the Kansas City Chiefs as a quality control coach, was promoted to assistant linebackers coach, then inside linebackers coach over the next six years.
He joined Matt Nagy’s Bears staff in 2019 — they worked together in Kansas City — and elected to depart this offseason. It’s unclear how long coach Nagy and general manager Ryan Pace will be employed in Chicago and it has created an unstable work environment. In addition to defensive coordinator Chuck Pagano retiring, DeLeone is the fifth assistant coach to depart from the Bears staff this offseason.
DeLeone is also the third coach to pick a job with the Lions over a job with the Bears in the last few weeks — joining running backs/assistant head coach Duce Staley and defensive coordinator Aaron Glenn.
“He (DeLeone) has been held in high regard by players he has coached and is credited with the development of Roquan Smith, who was a second-team All-Pro in 2020, when he led the Bears with 139 tackles and 18 tackles-for-loss, with four sacks, two interceptions and seven pass break-ups,” Chicago Sun-Times Mark Potash said. “Nick Kwiatkoski also blossomed under DeLeone, parlaying an outstanding 2019 season as an injury replacement for Smith and Danny Trevathan into a three-year, $21 million contract with the Raiders. And Trevathan had a standout season in 2019 before his injury, earning a three-year, $21.8 million contract extension with the Bears.”
DeLeone will have a difficult task ahead of him as the Lions seem poised to alter their linebacker’s roles/responsibilities, and the unit could potentially face an overhaul this offseason.
