On Tuesday, NFL Network’s Tom Pelissero reported that Detroit Lions offensive coordinator Ben Johnson had opted to remove his name from current head coaching opportunities and would be returning to Detroit in 2023.
On Wednesday, Jeremy Reisman and I held our weekly live mailbag podcast, and the first several questions we received surrounded Johnson. Were we surprised by Johnson’s return? How important is it for the Lions offense? And why would he make the decision to return?
With regard to the last question, one of my theories was:
“Purely speculation here, I would think the Lions organization probably went, ‘Hey Ben, we’ll give you a raise if you stick around.