January 5, 2021 Lions President & CEO Rod Wood Opening Statement: “Good morning everybody. Just a couple things before I take questions. I want to comment on the situation this year with COVID-19 and I think how well as an organization we handled it. We ended up with only five people in the organization testing positive. None of those individuals contracted it in the building or spread it to anybody else in the building, so we avoided the outbreaks that other teams had to deal with, which I think is a testament to our staff and the players and the coaches and how serious they took the protocols and how careful they were when they were not in the building. Obviously, the protocols set in place by the NFL worked well. I think we’re the only professional sports team and league anywhere in the country that’s going to play a full regular season and knock on wood, hopefully playoffs and the Super Bowl on time. So, great job by everybody here and across the League. “I really want to compliment Darrell Bevell and what he did really the last five weeks. It’s a very tough assignment to step into an interim head coaching assignment during the season. I think the players rallied around him. Darrell did a great job organizing things, then was thrown a curveball in the middle of his five-game stretch with the COVID-19 situation and the close contacts with the coaches that we lost for the Bucs game. But even with that, I think we came through it and (that’s) a testament to Darrell for that. “A couple comments on our searches; we’ve made public seven general manager candidates that we’ve interviewed, including three internal candidates. We’ve interviewed two head coaching candidates so far as of last night; Marvin Lewis last week, Eric Bieniemy last night, and after this call this morning, we’ll be interviewing Darrell Bevell for the position. As we go through the rest of this week and next, we’ll be releasing names as we interview them, so I appreciate your patience. If you have questions about individuals that we’ve not had interviewed, I’m going to defer those until we actually do meet with them and put that out there. So, stay tuned. This week and next will be very busy. We’re now in the process of interviewing people that were unable to interview until the season ended, so we have a number of those lined up this week and a few people into next week based upon their teams playing this weekend during the Wild Card games. Hopefully we’ll get to those early next week, and as I said, we’ll let everybody know when we’ve completed each interview. “So, with that, I’ll open it up to questions.” On what type of resource Special Assistant to Chairman and President & CEO Chris Spielman has been so far: “He’s been great. He’s been in every interview since he was here. He did miss the first three interviews with our internal candidates – Kyle O’Brien, Lance Newmark and Rob Lohman – but then he doubled back and did individual one-on-one interviews with each of those folks. He’s been great in the interviews, really focusing on a lot of the football questions that he brings expertise to. He’s also been great in the building, meeting with a lot of the coaches and players. He has contacts all over the country from his media days and playing days with coaches and others. He’s brough a lot of information to the table on candidates that we’re considering and feedback and research. So, it’s been great having Chris here. He brings energy, as everybody knows, if you know him. He’s a very positive influence in the building. Great addition.” On some of the traits he values and is looking for in this search: “Good question, and I think we talked about this when Chris (Spielman) and I did some press. We developed very specific criteria for both positions that we’re looking for that are unique. Not totally unique, but we think in some cases very unique to our situation. I won’t share all of them with you, but I would say they focus on leadership, culture, teamwork, awareness of each other’s strengths and weaknesses and what we’re really looking for is a culture that is open, inclusive, where everybody is pulling together as a team, and in one word, communication is paramount and everybody is doing the right thing for the Detroit Lions. So, the people that we’re looking for and the people that we’re bringing in to interview, I think, exhibit those traits. As we go through the interview process, hopefully we find people that we’re 100% confident will be the right people for the organization. And as I said in I think one of the previous calls, that’s very different than how we approached the search for Bob (Quinn) and Matt (Patricia), where we were more focused on candidates because of their accomplishments as opposed to criteria that had been established before we started interviewing with them. So, I’m very comfortable with the process and how it’s working so far and the criteria that we’ve developed.” On why he’s interviewing head coaching candidates without a general manager in place and if the team will allow the first position hired to influence the remaining opening: “We’re not really wed to a structure and we’re not wed to waiting for a GM to be hired to find the head coach. As we’ve gone through the interview process with both GM and head coaching candidates, we’ve been sharing our ideas and they’ve been sharing with us their ideas on who a good coach would be if it was a general manager candidate, and vice-versa if it was a head coaching candidate. So, there’s going to be no surprise I don’t think at the end (with) who we end up hiring on both sides. What we’re looking for is people that can work together and be partners, and not one working for the other necessarily. So, it doesn’t require us to hire a general manager first. It may work out that way because we’re a little bit ahead of the general manager search relative to the head coaching search, but if we find the perfect head coach and we’ve not yet found a general manager, we’re not going to wait on the coach. We’re in competition with other teams who are interviewing some of the same people, and it’s important, I think, to get the right coach. If that means we have to hire a coach first, that’s what we’ll do.” On if his first experience hiring a general manager and head coach and how that played out might influence what he’s not looking for in future hires: “It’s a good question. I think experience is the best teacher, and I think having gone through this now twice, there’s things I’ve learned and things hopefully that we’ll do better. I think one of the things is adding more people to the process. When Bob (Quinn) and I interviewed for Matt (Patricia), it was just Bob and I. Now, obviously Sheila’s (Ford Hamp) involved, (we) added Chris Spielman. (Vice President of Football Administration) Mike Disner’s been very involved. I think having more candidates is a difference, too. With Bob’s process, we interviewed three people. We’ve already interviewed seven for the general manager and we’ll continue to add to that list. I think also, just understanding how the jobs function and what the jobs are about. Being a general manager is not necessarily just picking players and putting a roster together, there’s more involved than that. So, finding people who exhibit some of the skills that are required to be a good manager of people and processes, not just picking players. And then ultimately, with the head coach, I think leadership and somebody that can work with the general manager and somebody that has had experience either as a head coach or you can project that experience as a coordinator into being a head coach, and really diving into those types of questions. Not that we didn’t do that in the search for Matt, but I think trying to do it differently, hopefully we’ll find the right people.” On where the organization stands with trying to mend relationships with former WR Calvin Johnson: “I would say nothing (has) really changed. We’re supportive of Calvin’s candidacy for the Hall of Fame, continue to try to reach out to him, but it’s going to require both of us to get together on that. It’s not just us. I won’t really comment on where we stand on that, but certainly as I’ve said at the very beginning, that’s my goal.” On if he believes the organization needs a complete roster rebuild or retooling: “My personal opinion is only going to matter a little bit, the opinion of who we hire as coach and the general manager is going to matter a lot more. I do think, despite the record, we’re not as far away as it might appear. I would think that we can retool some things and continue to be competitive, while we’re also – I think in some cases on the defensive side of the ball, having to rebuild the roster a little bit. So it’s a little maybe a combination of both. But there’ll be other people here in the building soon who will have big votes on those two questions.” On if there is anything the team can do to improve League and officiating relations: “I understand where you’re coming from. I think we have a really good relationship with the League, notwithstanding some of the evidence to the contrary. I have a lot of contacts in the League that I talk to regularly. I think they are as supportive as they can be, and I don’t think intentionally treat us any different than other teams, even though it might appear that way. With regard to rescheduling the (Buccaneers) game, certainly it could’ve been done, but the game had been moved to Saturday, it was a national TV game. I don’t think that we were treated any worse than Denver was a few weeks ago when they had to play a wide receiver from their practice squad at quarterback. There’s been other teams unfortunately that have had difficult issues with COVID-19, and this was our turn. I understand why they made the decision. We asked, but I don’t think it was because of any ill will towards the Detroit Lions on that front. “Officiating, clearly we had our share of calls that we wish went the other way. I think a lot of other teams probably feel the same way too. I do see reports after every game that we send into the League, asking about specific calls. Quite often they acknowledge it probably could’ve gone the other way, sometimes they point out that we’re wrong and how we look at it. So we have a good relationship with the League, and hopefully we don’t have to rely on a ref’s calls to win games because we’ll do it ourself, that’s what we should be trying to do.” On if the interim front office staff is able to sign Reserve/Future contracts: “We’re able to do that. We’re working on our futures contracts right now.” On if T Taylor Decker spoke with him and gave his opinion on where the organization could go from here: “I’ve had several one-on-one meetings with players, then we had a group meeting with some of the leadership yesterday. I know several of them also stopped in and talked to Chris (Spielman) on their way out. I won’t get into any of those conversations, but the lines of communication are open for sure, absolutely.” On if he can confirm the report of the Lions wanting to interview Seahawks General Manager John Schneider: “I’m not going to comment on anybody that we haven’t interviewed. Certainly not going to comment on anybody who’s under contract with another team. There’s lots of rumors out there. I don’t know where they get started, but I have no comment on that.” On if he has a preference with candidates and how they want to handle QB Matthew Stafford: “I don’t have a preference. We’ll see. We’re certainly talking about our entire roster, including Matthew, with everybody that we’re interviewing for both positions. He’s our quarterback. He’s a very important player, very important position. But again, when we have people in the building to weigh in on those decisions, that’s when we’ll be able to talk more about it. Certainly everybody that we talked to admires Matthew from afar, as much as we admire him inside the building.” On the COVID-19 restrictions to the interview process: “Right now, everything has been virtual up to this point. We’ll continue, probably, through this week. Once we zero in on a finalist or two for either position, we’ll definitely going to meet with the person, but even then, that will be subject to where they are with the team, that they may be still playing for something in the playoffs because until a team is eliminated, we can’t meet with any of their people in person because of COVID-19 restrictions. Once somebody has been eliminated from the playoffs, we can do it, but under some restrictions with that regard. So eventually we’ll have face-to-face meetings, but right now everything is virtual. It’s working fine. We’re kind of all used to this. You get a good sense for the person – not maybe the same sense you would in a room with them. It is also pretty productive from a time standpoint. You can od these and not have to fly around the country. I think it’s allowing us to be really productive this week to speak with a number of people that might have been fewer if we had to travel or had to fly in. Eventually there will be face-to-face interviews, for sure.” On if the team is willing to wait until after the Super Bowl if it means hiring the right candidate: “We’d be willing to wait if that’s what it took to find the right person, yes. There’s no deadline in our process.” On if he feels they have requested enough interviews for candidates or if they will conduct more: “I think that we’re probably to the point where we put forward every name that we’re going to consider. We had names that we’ve considered, restacked and reordered, and there are a handful that we may still pursue. Right now, I’m assuming the candidates that we’re interviewing, one of them will be our next head coach and one of them will be the next general manager.” |
