As I was talking on the phone with my friend this past weekend about how each of our Thanksgiving day festivities had turned out, the conversation inevitably turned to the Lions. After rehashing the gut-wrenching loss, he declared that Jim Bob Cooter needed to go and that anyone else could come up with a more imaginative offense.
He may have been overstating the whole ‘anyone’ could come up with a more imaginative offense, but the truth of the matter is that there has always been one issue or another with the Lions offense that goes back even further than Jim Bob Cooter.
The major issue under Cooter has always been the lack of a ground game and the fact that he either would stick with the run too long in some games, while in others he didn’t stick with it long enough. Right after that is the general lack of creativity.
The fact that the Lions ranked seventh in the NFL in scoring last season was really the most important stat for me, but as we have seen the offense spend way too much time in neutral or even reverse this year, there has obviously been no carryover effect as Matt Patricia had hoped.
The biggest take away I have from how this season has unfolded on offense is that Jim Bob Cooter has not been able to get the most out of what players he has. While creative and exciting offense is desired by every fan, effective scoring is the main responsibility of the offense.
Needless to say, it’s not happening and therefore it is in the Lions best interest to at least explore other options who can get the most out of this unit and put points on the board.
While listening to the radio the other day the commentators mentioned an article discussing possible options to replace Jim Bob. The list contained 17 candidates. Some were a stretch and some were more about being thorough and leaving no stone unturned.
In my mind’s eye, there are probably more possibilities out there that Bob Quinn and Matt Patricia would have on their radar, but I would like to take a look at just a few on this list that happens to catch my interest.
That being said, let’s dive in.