Post by Funkytown on Aug 16, 2023 11:52:48 GMT -6
How Ben Johnson Fixed Jared Goff and Became the Next Big Thing in NFL Coaching by Ben Solak
The Detroit Lions’ unheralded offensive coordinator had an unlikely rise to becoming Detroit’s play caller. Now, he’s crafting one of the league’s most interesting offenses while resurrecting Goff’s career in the process.
Good read at the link:
www.theringer.com/nfl/2023/8/14/23830935/how-detroit-lions-offensive-coordinator-ben-johnson-fixed-jared-goff
The Detroit Lions’ unheralded offensive coordinator had an unlikely rise to becoming Detroit’s play caller. Now, he’s crafting one of the league’s most interesting offenses while resurrecting Goff’s career in the process.
I’ve come to my own realization. Johnson was an unknown before last season because he was stuck coaching for struggling offenses during his developmental years. And we don’t expect good coaches to come from bad offenses. We expect good coaches to produce successful teams, and accordingly, we look to successful teams to find good coaches. It’s the coordinators of the Super Bowl teams that get poached for head-coaching jobs. And if not from the teams that were successful, then from the systems that have been—especially on the offensive side of the ball. If you’re an NFL team owner with an open head-coaching job, the simple answer seems to be snapping a branch off the Shanahan-McVay tree, snapping a branch off the Andy Reid tree, or finding some guy who was just coaching January football.
This past offseason, only one offensive coach interviewed for a head-coaching job who didn’t fall into one of those three buckets. It was Johnson, who interviewed with the Colts, the Texans, and the Panthers (for whom Johnson was reportedly the leading candidate), before he bowed out of the head-coaching cycle to stay in Detroit and keep coordinating the offense for Goff and the Lions.
It’s no surprise that Johnson got those interviews. When someone who was a quality control coach in 2019 coordinates one of the league’s best offenses three years later, everyone in the NFL will want to figure out who he is and how it happened and whether he can do it again. That’s what I set out to discover too.
From what I can figure, Johnson had exactly what both Goff and the McVay offense needed: an infusion of creativity and a willingness to change. He hadn’t yet been to the peak of the NFL’s mountaintop and didn’t come from a system that had dominated the league; he was just a guy who had been at the bottom of the NFL pit before and knew his way out.
Johnson’s at the bottom of the pit no longer. Welcome to the top of the mountain, where defensive coordinators spend all offseason brewing remedies for your particular offensive poison, where the premium on innovation becomes even greater. It’s one thing to innovate, and another to sustain. That is the challenge Johnson faces as he steps out of the unknown and into the known.
This past offseason, only one offensive coach interviewed for a head-coaching job who didn’t fall into one of those three buckets. It was Johnson, who interviewed with the Colts, the Texans, and the Panthers (for whom Johnson was reportedly the leading candidate), before he bowed out of the head-coaching cycle to stay in Detroit and keep coordinating the offense for Goff and the Lions.
It’s no surprise that Johnson got those interviews. When someone who was a quality control coach in 2019 coordinates one of the league’s best offenses three years later, everyone in the NFL will want to figure out who he is and how it happened and whether he can do it again. That’s what I set out to discover too.
From what I can figure, Johnson had exactly what both Goff and the McVay offense needed: an infusion of creativity and a willingness to change. He hadn’t yet been to the peak of the NFL’s mountaintop and didn’t come from a system that had dominated the league; he was just a guy who had been at the bottom of the NFL pit before and knew his way out.
Johnson’s at the bottom of the pit no longer. Welcome to the top of the mountain, where defensive coordinators spend all offseason brewing remedies for your particular offensive poison, where the premium on innovation becomes even greater. It’s one thing to innovate, and another to sustain. That is the challenge Johnson faces as he steps out of the unknown and into the known.
Good read at the link:
www.theringer.com/nfl/2023/8/14/23830935/how-detroit-lions-offensive-coordinator-ben-johnson-fixed-jared-goff
