Jim Bob Cooter may not be safe, but at least he made it through Black Monday,
Via Dave Birkett of the Detroit Free Press, the embattled Lions offensive coordinator wasn’t fired Monday, but head coach Matt Patricia said he wanted to wait to think about possible changes.
Specifically to Cooter, Patricia said he wanted “to allow the emotion of the season to come down.”
“I don’t think I need to put a hard [deadline on making a decision] at this current moment,” Patricia said. “But obviously we have a timeline that we do have to address with it and things will come up when they come up. But for the minute, I’m just going to take the rest of today, maybe enjoy the new year and see my kids and my wife and we’ll settle in and we’ll go from there. So, I think that’s probably the best idea at this point.”
Last week, Cooter sounded resigned to his fate, and quarterback Matthew Stafford didn’t offer as strong an endorsement as he did last year.
The Lions were 24th in total offense and 25th in scoring, though a lot of that had to do with trading Golden Tate, injuries to Kerryon Johnson, Marvin Jones, T.J. Lang, and Bruce Ellington, and not playing Johnson enough early in the season.