Dan Campbell has spent most of his time in Detroit as the coach other fan bases wished they had. This week the Detroit Lions coach showed up somewhere new. He is sixth on a national ranking of the 10 head coaches whose jobs are in the most jeopardy.
CBS Sports’ Bryan DeArdo ordered the list from hottest seat to coolest, with Tampa Bay’s Todd Bowles first. Campbell landed three spots behind Aaron Glenn, his former defensive coordinator and now the New York Jets’ head coach. The reasoning is simple. Detroit is 11-10 since the start of last season, the first after Glenn and offensive coordinator Ben Johnson left, and Athlon’s Luke Easterling predicted in July that the Lions would miss the playoffs again.
Why Dan Campbell landed on the hot-seat list
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It is the defense. Detroit allows 31.8 points and a league-worst 304.0 passing yards per game under second-year coordinator Kelvin Sheppard. The 1,216 passing yards are the most in franchise history through four games, and the Lions have given up 30 or more points three times.
Campbell has not entertained a change. “I’m not talking about all that,” he said Monday when asked about Sheppard’s job. This week he went a different direction and challenged his defenders to ask for the assignment on Arizona tight end Trey McBride.
The reasons to doubt the ranking are just as easy to find. Campbell went 15-2 in 2024 and is under contract through 2027. The offense has scored at least 26 points in every game. Aidan Hutchinson ranks second among 110 edge defenders with a 92.0 PFF grade and leads the position with 29 pressures. The roster still has the pieces of a contender, which is why a 2-2 start that looks like this has been so jarring.
The next month will say more than any list. Detroit is a 4.5-point favorite Sunday at Arizona, with kickoff at 4:25 p.m. ET. A bye follows, then home games against Green Bay and Minnesota. The Lions are already two games behind the unbeaten Vikings in the NFC North. A ranking from one writer will not cost Campbell his job. Seeing his name on it at all is new, and the defense will decide whether it stays there.
