Dan Campbell's past helped him make a hire for the Lions future
The Detroit Lions did a good job retaining most of their coaches over the offseason. Keeping offensive coordinator Ben Johnson was one of the biggest wins of the season for any team. Still, the Lions did lose some guys. One of the biggest losses for this team was defensive line coach Todd Wash. he left […]
The Detroit Lions did a good job retaining most of their coaches over the offseason. Keeping offensive coordinator Ben Johnson was one of the biggest wins of the season for any team. Still, the Lions did lose some guys. One of the biggest losses for this team was defensive line coach Todd Wash. he left for a job with the Carolina Panthers.
While Wash was a tough loss, Lions head coach Dan Campbell knew exactly who he wanted to hire for the position. In fact, he's known for a long time. This all came about with the help of some friends.
Not long ago, Campbell was on the coaching staff of the Miami Dolphins with Buccaneers head coach Todd Bowles and Buccaneers defensive line coach Kacy Rodgers. He maintained a friendship with both of those guys after everyone left Miami.
When Bowles took the head coaching job with the New York Jets in 2015, Rodgers took the defensive coordinator job there. It was in New York where the two hired a young coach named John Scott to be their defensive quality control coach. Bowles and Rodgers must have raved about Scott and said something that Campbell never forgot.
"You know, he was somebody that was on my radar when I took this job." Campbell said. "And, and I actually knew about him from from Coach Bowles and Kacy Rogers, who, you know, out there at Tampa with Todd. You know, he was with them at the Jets. He was a young coach, he was an assistant D-line coach and I got a ton of respect for for Todd Bowles and Casey both, you know, I coached with them in Miami years ago. And I know they know what they're talking about. So it's always kind of been on the radar and so that that piqued my interest. And then when this you know, when the opportunity came up, it's time to hire someone for that room. Never really lost track of him."
Scott lasted two years with the Jets and then left for a job at Arkansas. After Todd Wash left and the defensive line coach job opened up, the Lions wasted little time bringing in Scott, who had spent the last few years on the Penn State coaching staff. Campbell raved about about what Scott was able to do at Penn state and what he's been able to do in Detroit so far.
"You see what he's done out there at Penn State. So he's, and those guys that are fundamentally at Penn State, those edge guys are, you know, and upfront I mean they're they're on it now they do it right. And so it just felt like it was gonna be a fit for us." Cambell said. "It just felt like that's where we really need to go with this. You know, we talked about wanting to be, you know, a great defense. And it all starts with that d-line up front man, you gotta be able to build a wall strike blocks, violent shed, and then when it's time to turn it into rush, man, we can, you can hit an edge and put them back into the quarterback and those are all things that I feel like he can teach and our guys are really responding to it and working."
That's a big win for the Lions. Especially when the majority of the Lions defensive line has spent most of it's career with Todd Wash. They're learning form a new teacher these days and things are coming along nicely. We'll soon see how much impact that Scott has on the defensive line once the season starts up, but so far the reviews are pretty good.
This is another great story of how the NFL community works. You don't forget who you've worked with and sometimes the friendships you make a long the way can help you down the line.
Featured image by Junfu Han / USA TODAY NETWORK
