After three consecutive winning seasons and two straight NFC North titles, and after coming heart-wrenchingly close to a Super Bowl appearance at the end of the 2023 campaign, the Lions have had to come to grips with the reality that other successful franchises face: a brain drain. On the heels of its 15-2 showing in 2024, Detroit lost offensive coordinator Ben Johnson and defensive coordinator Aaron Glenn, as both men accepted head coaching gigs elsewhere.
However, the Lions did not search far and wide to replace them (as our 2025 coordinator tracker shows). With respect to the OC post, there were no publicly-reported interviews other than the one for John Morton, and new DC Kelvin Sheppard’s only competition for his job prior to his promotion was Buccaneers inside linebackers coach Larry Foote.
As Dave Birkett of the Detroit Free Press confirms, that was by design. Although it would be reductive to say that Morton and Sheppard landed their positions solely due to continuity concerns, Birkett says continuity was certainly a major factor.
Morton, 55, worked as the Lions’ senior offensive assistant in 2022, which was Dan Campbell’s second season as the club’s head coach and Johnson’s first as the offensive coordinator. Birkett noted in a human interest piece on Morton earlier this year that Campbell wanted to replace Johnson with someone who would retain much of the outgoing play-caller’s terminology and playbook, and that is what he will get in Morton.
After the 2022 season, Morton left Detroit to join Sean Payton’s first staff with the Broncos. The success that rookie passer Bo Nix enjoyed in Denver in 2024 helped Morton rebuild his OC stock, and the upcoming season will mark his second attempt at the position (he was the Jets’ offensive coordinator in 2017, when the team was quarterbacked primarily by Josh McCown). In addition to his familiarity with Johnson’s scheme, Morton will inherit a roster that returns its core group of high-end skill-position players and O-linemen. Birkett believes Morton will call for more downfield throws than his predecessor, but the offense should otherwise look quite similar.
Sheppard, 37, enjoyed an eight-year playing career, and he has quickly risen up the coaching ladder since becoming a part of Campbell’s first Lions staff in 2021 as the team’s outside linebackers coach. He has earned praise for helping revive the careers of veterans like Alex Anzalone and helping guide young draft picks like Jack Campbell and Malcolm Rodriguez, and his reputation as a rising star in the coaching world extended beyond Michigan.
While Birkett says Sheppard (a former linebacker) sees defense through a different “prism” than Glenn (a former defensive back), Sheppard will, like Morton, inherit a strong collection of returning players, including the likes of Anzalone, Jack Campbell, Aidan Hutchinson, Alim McNeill, Brian Branch, and Kerby Joseph. The Lions finished in the bottom half of the league in terms of total defense in 2024, but they allowed the seventh-fewest points per game.
Continuity means having to spend less time bringing newcomers up to speed so there’s nothing wrong with that. How many organizations with a constant revolving door ever achieve their goals?
I thought Morton did a good job with the Jets, but then he got fired. There is apparently some kind of problem working well with others that came up back then, but we’ll see how it goes.