Watch CBS News

Lions Not Looking To Next Year With Playing Time, 'Win Now' The Goal

By Ashley Scoby
@AshleyScoby

The Lions' season is over. It may still be mid-December, and there are still games on the schedule, but football season in Detroit may as well be finished, unless you happen to be a Michigan State fan. The Lions were mathematically eliminated from playoff contention, and the benefits the franchise stands to reap by winning the last few meaningless games are small.

As the Lions prepare to head into an offseason full of roster and front office decisions, they could get a jump-start on some of those during these last few games. Several young players could, theoretically, see more playing time during meaningless games, so the staff can get a better idea of what they're capable of. Decisions to cut, trade or keep players could follow.

Except that's not the way the Lions' coaching staff wants to do things. They are still running pell-mell towards the mirage of "winning now," which can max out at a 7-9 record.

"There's no down the road for us," head coach Jim Caldwell said. "It's a here and now and what helps us at this particular point to get in the best position to win this particular game. So that's kind of always been my philosophy."

Caldwell has preached competitiveness and an inner drive as reasons why winning is so crucial during the stretch run of this season.

His time in the college coaching ranks, at Wake Forest, taught him the urgency of the business, and the lack of time coaches had to build any kind of foundation. The same enigma exists in the NFL – it takes time to build a winning franchise, and it takes sacrificing things along the way. "Winning now" is almost never conducive to building something more substantial or long-lasting.

"Let me put it this way," Caldwell said. "There used to be a point in time when you would redshirt a lot of guys in college and you would end up redshirting a lot of good players sometimes that can play for you as a freshman. You learn a lesson that if you redshirt them, sometimes, somebody else is going to be coaching those good players."

Again, the parallels stretch to the NFL. Caldwell doesn't want to consistently play younger, inexperienced players (like Kyle Van Noy, TJ Jones, etc) to see what they can do or to further their development, because he's in the business of "winning now."

But as Caldwell feeds that "now" approach, he also could be consumed by it and spit back out. His future as Lions head coach is up in the air, especially with a new general manager on the way in at some point this offseason.

The Lions' staff could spend the rest of this season playing with different personnel combinations, developing young players or further evaluating the roster to make the best-informed offseason decisions. But that wouldn't fit with the win-now-or-fall-on-the-sword-trying approach.

"We're not in the business right now of trying people out to see what they can do for next year," defensive coordinator Teryl Austin said when asked specifically about Van Noy, who was the Lions' second-round draft pick last year. "If he earns playing time for this year to help us win now, then he'll get the snaps he deserves."

View CBS News In
CBS News App Open
Chrome Safari Continue
Be the first to know
Get browser notifications for breaking news, live events, and exclusive reporting.