Jim Caldwell wasn’t the only coach to lose his job.
DETROIT — Jim Caldwell wasn’t the only coach to lose his job on Black Monday.
In an anticipated move, the Detroit Lions have also canned offensive line coach Ron Prince. The Detroit Free Press was the first to report it.
GM Bob Quinn spent a first-round pick on Taylor Decker, a third-round pick on Graham Glasgow and $19 million annually on T. J. Lang and Rick Wagner. And with all those fancy new pieces in place, Detroit trotted out one of the worst offensive lines in the league.
They allowed Matthew Stafford to be sacked 47 times, a career high. And Stafford has played behind some crummy offensive lines over the years.
That’s not good, and the run blocking was just as bad. No matter how you look at it — total yards (32nd), yards per carry (32nd), success rate of power runs (32nd), percentage of runs that gained yardage at all (30th) — the Lions were among the worst running teams in the league. And unsurprisingly enough, Football Outsiders ranked their run blocking 31st.
Prince took over the unit after Jeremiah Washburn was fired in the middle of the 2015 season. He was an old-school coach who was tough on his players. Some responded to his style over the years, while others did not. And in the end, the results spoke for themselves.
As Quinn sets out to find a new coach, he’s expected to be particularly keen on hearing ideas about how to repair the offensive line. He’s already invested heavily in the unit, after all, plus handed the richest contract in NFL history to his quarterback.
