Detroit Lions: What does the Darrell Bevell hiring mean?
By Robert Jones
Offensively, aside from former offensive coordinator Jim Bob Cooter, the biggest scapegoat was Matthew Stafford. His regression was palpable and perplexing after all the progress he had made during the previous two-plus seasons under Cooter.
Which leads us to the notion that he is finished in Detroit or just going to be paid to hand-off the ball. On the outside looking in, Darrell Bevell has had run-oriented offenses in all his stops as an offensive coordinator. Just look at his time in Minnesota and with Seattle.
But let’s also take a look at Bevell’s track record with quarterbacks. Bevell was the assistant quarterbacks coach in Green Bay from 2000-2002 before being promoted to quarterback’s coach for the Packers from 2003-2005. In his time there he worked with both Brett Favre and Aaron Rodgers, both of whom were allowed to throw the ball.
In 2006 he became the Minnesota Vikings offensive coordinator. This started the concept of Bevell as all run and no pass, but consider this; he had Adrian Petersen in his prime for the majority of his stay there and quarterbacks like Brad Johnson, Tarvaris Jackson, and Gus Frerotte.
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Would you have opened up the passing game more with those guys when you have Petersen in the backfield? Me neither.
Then in 2009 and 2010, his final two seasons in Minnesota he had Brett Favre at quarterback. Despite having a healthy Petersen in the backfield Favre passed for 4,202 yards with 33 touchdown passes and only seven interceptions in 2009.
And he was allowed to throw the ball deep on several occasions stretching the field.
Admittedly Favre struggled in 2010 in part due to injuries that hampered his season, but the concept was still the same; run Petersen to balance the offense and control the game, then throw the ball all over the place.
From 2011-2017 Bevell was the offensive coordinator in Seattle and was a big influence in the development of Russell Wilson. Bevell also had running back Marshawn Lynch for the majority of his stay to balance the offense and keep defenses honest, which allowed for much success with play-action passes.
Now before I go further, yes, Marshawn Lynch would have beaten the Patriots in Super Bowl XLIX had they given him the ball on the goal line, but with all the accounts I’ve heard, there is still conjuncture whether that was completely Bevell’s call or a collaborative call between him and Pete Carroll. But I digress…
The point is this; Bevell wasn’t hired to put the shackles on Stafford. While he will emphasize the ground game to allow the Lions to control the tempo, he will have Stafford pilot a diverse passing attack to compliment his backs.
This story is continued on the next page …