After he had been talked about as a possible candidate, on Sunday NFL Network's Ian Rapoport and Tom Pelissero reported Denver Broncos passing game coordinator John Morton was emerging as a strong candidate to be the new Detroit Lions' offensive coordinator and had interviewed with head coach Dan Campbell.
On "The Pat McAfee Show" Monday, ESPN's Adam Schefter practically declared Morton would be the hire to replace Ben Johnson. Schefter has now followed that with a report the Lions are working to hire Morton.
"Lions are working to hire Broncos pass game coordinator Johnny Morton as their offensive coordinator and the coach to replace Ben Johnson, per sources. He is traveling to Detroit to meet with team. Morton worked in Detroit before and could soon be doing it again."
Lions set to hire John Morton as new offensive coordinator
Morton has a lot of ties to Campbell. He was on the Lions' staff as a senior offensive assistant in 2022, and in 2023 Campbell lauded how much Morton helped passing game coordinator Tanner Engstrand.
"John Morton, man, Johnny was – Johnny’s a superstar now and there’s a number of things that he did for us last year that are things that we’ve kept,” Campbell said. “And I really feel like that helped Tanner as well. And he took a lot of that, and he learned from that, and he’s grown from that.”
Morton also overlapped with Campbell in the second of his two years as New Orleans Saints wide receivers coach, 2016, when Campbell was in his first season as the tight ends coach on Sean Payton's staff there. Then Morton has of course spent the last two years working as passing game coordinator under Payton, Campbell's mentor, in Denver.
In his season-ending press conference last week, Campbell made it absolutely clear he wanted to keep as much of the Lions' offense in place as possible under a new coordinator. That seemed to point strongly toward an internal candidate to replace Johnson (Engstrand, running backs Scottie Montgomery, now-departed wide receivers coach Antwaan Randle El?), with a unique segment of outside candidates likely to fit the bill.
While Morton is technically an outside hire, he seems to be as aligned philosophically with Campbell as an offensive coordinator hire can be.