New Lions head coach Matt Patricia got to make most of the decisions about his staff, but it was General Manager Bob Quinn who wanted to part ways with quarterbacks coach Brian Callahan.
“Things being continuous on the coaching staff is good, but maybe too much of it would be hard,” Quinn told Kyle Meinke of MLive. “There were a lot of hard decisions I had to make without having a head coach here.”
The Lions kept offensive coordinator Jim Bob Cooter. They fired Callahan, replacing him with George Godsey.
Quinn said it was a tough decision, but the quarterbacks room needed new leadership. So Matthew Stafford and his backups will have a new voice in the room this season.
“I think Brian Callahan is a really good coach,” Quinn said. “I think Brian had some other opportunities that might have been better for him long term, and I didn’t really want to tie him down to a place with a new coach. He went to Oakland, which is where his dad was. There were a lot of roots there. So sometimes those things come up, and you don’t want to just hold him back.”