When the Lions announced last December that head coach Matt Patricia and General Manager Bob Quinn would return for the 2020 season, the team’s principal owner Martha Firestone Ford said that the expectation was that the team would be a playoff contender after going 9-22-1 the last two years.
Ford stepped down from the ownership role on Tuesday and handed the title over to her daughter Sheila Ford Hamp. Hamp discussed the move, which has been planned for some time, on Tuesday afternoon and said that the timing was not related to any health concerns regarding her mother.
Hamp said, via Dave Birkett of the Detroit Free Press, that she will be a “very hands on” owner and that the expectation remain in place through the change. She didn’t denote any specific win total that fulfills those expectations while saying “major improvements” are necessary.
If they don’t come, one of Ford’s first big decisions will be whether to part ways with Patricia and Quinn so she can put her own stamp on the team in 2021.