Dave Birkett | Detroit Free Press
The Detroit Lions have a new defensive line coach: Former Jacksonville Jaguars defensive coordinator Todd Wash.
The Lions hired Wash and three other assistants Wednesday and are close to rounding out their staff.
Wash spent the past five seasons as Jacksonville’s defensive coordinator after originally joining the team as defensive line coach/run game coordinator in 2013. He previously coached defensive line for the Seattle Seahawks.
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The Lions also hired Kelvin Sheppard and Brian Duker as defensive assistants, and Seth Ryan as assistant wide receivers coach.
Sheppard played eight NFL seasons at linebacker and appeared in seven games for the Lions in 2018. He has never coached in the NFL, but should work extensively with outside linebackers.
Duker joins the Lions after spending the past three seasons as a coaching analyst with the Baltimore Ravens. Ryan, who played receiver at Clemson, spent the past four seasons with the Los Angeles Chargers, where he was a coaching intern in 2017-18 and an offensive quality control coach in 2019-20.
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The Lions need to hire a receivers coach, and are considering ex-Pittsburgh Steelers receivers Hines Ward and Antwaan Randle El for the job.
Randle El is an offensive assistant with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, and cannot be hired until after the Super Bowl.
“Coach El, he’s been very helpful, not only to me but to the other receivers as well,” Bucs receiver Tyler Johnson said Wednesday. “Early in the season, knowing that the playbook is hard for receivers to come in and learn, but El definitely has helped that. He stayed with us afterwards to go over the installs from the previous days, the day of. We’ll do some two-minute drill here and there. But Coach El has definitely been very helpful during this process.”
Contact Dave Birkett at dbirkett@freepress.com. Follow him on Twitter @davebirkett.