Last week, before he was fired by the Lions, Jim Caldwell said his coaching future depended on “what the Lord has planned for me.” And bringing his kids and grandchildren to his final postgame press conference last week did little to stifle the image of a guy preparing to be finished.
But Caldwell apparently wants to coach again.
According to Dave Birkett of the Detroit Free Press, Fritz Pollard Alliance chairman John Wooten said Caldwell wants to get back into the game as a head coach in 2018.
“It’s a wide-open thing,” Wooten said. “There’s quite a few openings right now and you never know who’s going to look at what and see how it goes. But he still has interest.”
Frankly, there should be more interest in the 63-year-old Caldwell, based on his resume and his setting.
He went 36-28 in four seasons with the Lions, a .563 winning percentage. He also went to the playoffs twice. But the Lions franchise has an all-time .448 winning percentage, and had just one winning season in the 13 years prior to his arrival, when coaches Jim Schwartz, Rod Marinelli, Dick Jauron and Marty Mornhinweg led them to a 60-148 record (.288).
So while Caldwell might not give good press conference, or inflame passions of fans (at least in a positive way), the bottom line is he’s pretty good at coaching football, and some of the places with vacancies should consider him.