Lions offensive coordinator Ben Johnson has not spoken publicly about returning to the team for another season despite interest from other teams with head coaching vacancies, but he did speak to wide receiver Amon-Ra St. Brown.
St. Brown said on the latest episode of the St. Brown Brothers podcast that he spoke to Johnson shortly before word broke on Tuesday that he was taking himself out of the running for head coaching jobs in Washington and Seattle. St. Brown said that Johnson told him he felt there was still more to accomplish with the Lions.
“I’m like, ‘So what’s up with you, you did an interview, like, are you leaving?’” St. Brown said. “He’s like, ‘You know what, I’m on my way to the facility right now.’ He said he couldn’t sleep last night. He was thinking about it and he said ‘There’s unfinished business.’ He wants to stay. . . . He said his heart is in Detroit, he wants to stay. So he told me that while he was on his way to the facility.”
There is a report that Johnson’s “asking price spooked some teams,” so there may be more at play than the desire to try to bring the Lions to the Super Bowl for the first time in franchise history. Whatever the full case may be, reaching that goal would only serve to strengthen Johnson’s case for a move up the coaching ladder.
