Detroit Lions get Christmas gifts; is win over Tom Brady in their stocking?
Free Press sports writers Dave Birkett and Carlos Monarrez hand out gifts for the Detroit Lions, and predict the game vs. the Tampa Bay Buccaneers.
Carlos Monarrez and Dave Birkett, Detroit Free Press
Darrell Bevell is out. Robert Prince is in. And the Detroit Lions are going — for one week at least — with their third head coach of the season.
Prince will assume head coaching duties for Saturday's game against the Tampa Bay Buccaneers after Bevell, who was named interim coach after Matt Patricia was fired last month, was deemed a high-risk close contact to a confirmed COVID-19 positive case.
Along with Bevell, defensive assistants Cory Undlin, Bo Davis, Ty McKenzie and Steve Gregory are in quarantine and cannot take part in Saturday's game at Ford Field.
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Prince is a former college offensive coordinator at Boise State and the Lions' longest-tenured assistant coach. He joined Jim Caldwell's staff in 2014, was retained by Patricia in 2018, and is in his seventh season as Lions receivers coach and 13th NFL season overall.
"He's one of the best coaches I’ve ever had," receiver Danny Amendola said earlier this season. "Brings the juice every single day, gets guys in the right mentality day in and day out. Meetings, practice, games and an amazing coach to play for. I love him to death. Really, really happy to be playing for him."
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Prince's winding coaching road has taken him from small colleges like Humboldt State and Fort Lewis College to the Japanese X League, where he was offensive coordinator/quarterbacks coach in 1996-97, to the NFL.
He spent three seasons as an offensive assistant with the Atlanta Falcons in 2004-06 and three more coaching wide receivers for the Jacksonville Jaguars and Seattle Seahawks before returning to college as pass game coordinator for Colorado in 2010.
"He’s one of the best wide receiver coaches in the league," Patricia said earlier this year. "But he’s again, the X’s and O’s, he’s super smart offensively, he handles a lot of things for us in the passing game, and like I said, he really coaches his players hard and he gets them better."
While Prince will assume head coaching duties, quarterbacks coach Sean Ryan will call offensive plays and head coach assistant Evan Rothstein will handle defensive play calls.
Neither Ryan nor Rothstein has been a play caller at any level, and Rothstein has worked primarily behind the scenes on research projects and analysis.
"I think that’s the most important part of it is who’s going to be able to communicate clearly, who has the best handle on the information," Bevell said. "Evan is very, very knowledgeable. He’s involved in the game day operations already. The communications are very crisp and clear with him with some of the game management things that he’s doing already. So he’s been in very high-pressure situations already helping, so it felt like a natural one for him."
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Bevell, Undlin, Davis, McKenzie and Gregory started a minimum five-day quarantine period on Tuesday, after practice squad linebacker Anthony Pittman and one unidentified assistant coach tested positive for COVID-19.
Bevell said all coaches will finish their quarantine Sunday, and would have been able to take part in a game that day had the NFL granted the team's request to move Saturday's kick.
Instead, the Lions will work with a shell of a defensive staff against the future Hall-of-Fame quarterback Tom Brady and the explosive Buccaneers offense.
While Rothstein, who started his career as a student assistant offensive line coach and director of video operations at SUNY Cortland in 2006 and joined the Lions as a special teams quality control coach in 2012 before moving to special projects two years later, will handle Undlin's primary duties as defensive coordinator, the Lions have shifted responsibilities of some of their other staff.
Assistant defensive backs coach Tony Carter will coach defensive backs on game day, William Clay Ford minority coaching assistant Ty Warren will work with the defensive line and director of football research Dave Corrao will coach linebackers.
Bevell said he and his assistants will continue to meet with players and take part in game-planning virtually.
"As far as the day to day, all the way up to game day we’ll be doing our same rules," he said. "Again, today, I did our normal red-area install today. We’re watching practice virtually. We’re talking, making corrections with the coaches after, still have all our meetings. Everything’s exactly the same. (Friday's) meetings will be the same. Just will not be able to be there on game day.
Contact Dave Birkett at dbirkett@freepress.com. Follow him on Twitter @davebirkett.
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