Drew Petzing unveils that the Lions have one more hidden offensive coordinator in the building
The Lions have a lot of guys capable of calling plays
The Detroit Lions are very clearly going all-in on their offense this offseason. They hired former Cardinals offensive coordinator Drew Petzing to be their new OC. Then they doubled down and hired former Giants OC Mike Kafka for a role that has not been released yet. On top of that, they have head coach Dan Campbell, who has had plenty of experience calling plays, and then if you want to go even deeper than that, they have Bruce Gradkowski on staff, who was an OC in the UFL.
But that’s not it. In speaking with the guys over at Pride of Detroit on Thursday, Petzing revealed that there’s one more person in the room who will essentially serve as another offensive coordinator.
Petzing calls Jared Goff another offensive coordinator on staff
“To me, a good quarterback play call relationship. He’s another coordinator on staff. He’s another coach on staff.” Petzing said. “Because of how much time is required to play that position at a high level, and how involved, we don’t do anything without the quarterback touching the ball. So everything we do has to be based around his skill set, making him comfortable, allowing him to see the game the way that he thinks he sees it best.”
“And then I can do some things and involve some things. And ‘hey, you haven’t done this, but I think this is going to fit really well. Here’s why, here’s how. Let’s take a look at it. Are you seeing this the same way I do? Let’s take a couple reps of it. Oh yeah, you’re on it, or alright, hey, you’re not feeling that we got other ways to go.’ I think all of that is, you know, kind of the ever-evolving offense that you guys will see on the field. But that relationship, that communication, is as important as anything.”
This makes a ton of sense. It’s very similar to the working relationship Goff had with Ben Johnson when Johnson called Goff an extension of him as much as he is an extension of Goff. There has to be that simpatico on the field, and there has to be that trust there that if needed, Goff can call the offense on the field on the fly.
So that shows that, again, as he did with Johnson, he’ll have a lot of input on how this offense is installed and run purely because nobody is going to run it on the field more than he will. It just makes sense.
The inclusion of new things is going to be a fun angle to watch play out. Not that we expect Jared Goff to start running the ball downfield or something like that, but we’ve seen a lot of what we think Goff can do, and it’s been working. But the addition of some new wrinkles could add that extra little bit that could make him even more dangerous than he already is.
We’ll see in July when they get on the field and start getting this thing going in practice together. But it sounds like the relationship is already blossoming.
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