Who will be the Detroit Lions head coach next season?

Does Sheila have a shortlist of candidates?

To be fair, there is still time to turn this thing around and field a respectable season for Matt Patricia and his Lions, yet how can they turn things around without considerably better play on defense?

Assuming Patricia has no magic formula, which one might consider to be the case considering how these Lions have played defense under his administration so far, then it becomes a case of who could be the Lions coach next year?

Sheila Ford Hamp may decide to go to the league for help, much like her Mother Martha Firestone Ford did to get current general manager Bob Quinn, who bided his time for two years before firing Jim Caldwell so he could hire his good friend Matt Patricia.

Or perhaps Sheila has been proactive and been putting together a shortlist of candidates to take over for Bob Quinn and Patricia because let’s be honest this regime is tied at the hip. If one goes then the other must as well.

If Sheila hires a general manager, then he will have a great deal to say about the hiring of the next head coach. He kinda has to if he’s given the position. If Sheila prefers to go the ‘Bill Belichick’ route and hire the coach herself giving him a very large role in personnel decisions and running the team, then he would be only one step away from ownership in everything he does.

William Clay Ford ran the team without a general manager for many years, that wouldn’t be completely out of the blue, but assuming either Sheila or her new general manager understand that the offense isn’t the problem, then it would make sense that the new head coach would be defensive-minded.

Since no one knows at this point what veteran coaches of note will or won’t be available after the season, I will only concentrate on few candidates that many insiders around the NFL consider up and coming coaching prospects.

We’ll start with San Francisco defensive coordinator Robert Saleh, who happens to not only be in charge of a successful defense that actually attacks opposing offenses, but he is also a Michigan native hailing from Dearborn.

The connection would make sense and this may just be the job he can’t say no to.

Leslie Frazier is the defensive coordinator for the Buffalo Bills. He didn’t fare that well in Minnesota as their head coach back in 2011-2013, but many head coaches haven’t blossomed until their second opportunity as a head coach. See Bill Belichick as a prime example.