As head coaching interviews have lined up for Detroit Lions offensive coordinator Ben Johnson, one of the four has had a "one of these things is not like the others" vibe. On the idea it could come open, it felt like a job Johnson would easily avoid even interviewing for.
Beyond that, there have been strong indications Johnson wants alignment in a new organization, as he should. A tentacle of that has been him possibly wanting to choose a general manager that would follow him to a new team, and the Lions have multiple candidates in their front office who could do that.
When the Las Vegas Raiders fired head coach Antonio Pierce on Tuesday, it seemed general manager Tom Telesco might be safe after only one year on the job. Then on Thursday, Telesco was fired to make it a full house cleaning of the top football people in the organization.
The Raiders are clearing their decks in effort to hire Ben Johnson
As Jordan Schultz of FOX Sports noted, however obviously, the Raiders can now sell head coaching candidates on a clean reset.
Dianna Russini of The Athletic offered similar sentiment, while highlighting Tom Brady's presence as a minority owner.
By all accounts, Brady is heavily involved in the Raiders' search for a new head coach. A report he reached out to Bill Belichick about being the Raiders' head coach may or may not have real teeth, but it's fair for the future Hall of Famer to reach out to his former head coach in a broader sense.
Brady of course is also working as a game analyst for FOX. During the Lions-Cowboys game on Oct. 13, after a trick play touchdown, Brady talked glowingly about Johnson and the Detroit offense (h/t to the Detroit Free Press).
“Come on," Brady said. "If you’re not having fun watching that, you don’t have a heartbeat."
After a commercial break, Brady continued.
"I’d love to be the quarterback in this offense, it's just so much fun," Brady said. "Again, there's a lot of variety to choose from. ... So when I look at this offense, it reminds me of what great offense should be in the NFL. This is a great blueprint, they're under center a lot. A lot of it's play-action pass, a lot of it's deception, so, it really slows that defense down, and you see the benefits of it."
The Raiders have the over $107 million in cap space right now, along with the No. 6 overall pick and four of the top-73 picks in April's draft. So they can offer a proverbial carte blanche for a head coach and general manager to craft in their vision. Alignment between Johnson and an incumbent general manager has been removed as a concern.
The Raiders have gone all the way to get rid of their general manager rather than doing a half-measure there. That doesn't feel like an accident, the day before they're interviewing Johnson for their head coaching job. It's incumbent upon teams to sell themselves to Johnson as much as he has to sell himself to them.
The Raiders may have to do the best selling job of the four teams Johnson is interviewing with, and they have done what's necessary to accommodate his possible desire to choose a general manager he can align with. It doesn't mean they will get him, but they understood the assignment to give themselves the best possible chance.
