For the second straight season, former Lions offensive coordinator Darrell Bevell is an interim head coach as a team ends a bad season.
When the Detroit Lions fired head coach Matt Patricia the Saturday after Thanksgiving in 2020, offensive coordinator Darrell Bevell served out the season as interim head coach with a 1-4 record.
Bevell landed in Jacksonville as offensive coordinator under Urban Meyer this year. A 2-11 record, bad decisions and rampant dysfunction practically from the start, finally cost Meyer his job late Wednesday night/early Thursday morning.
In Meyer’s place, Bevell has been elevated to Jaguars’ interim head coach for the rest of the season.
Darrell Bevell has been here before as an interim head coach
Bevell has been an offensive coordinator in the NFL almost continuously since 2006, with four teams now (Minnesota Vikings 2006-2010, Seattle Seahawks, 2011-2017, Detroit Lions, 2019-2020, Jaguars this year). He coached in two Super Bowls with the Seahawks, and won one, which makes Meyer’s reported call out of his assistants as “losers” all the more ridiculous.
The Lions beat the Chicago Bears in Bevell’s first game as interim head coach last year, before losing the last four. Not having to deal with Patricia anymore seemed to give players a boost in that first game. On that same note, a (legal) bet on the Jaguars to beat the Houston Texans on Sunday might be a solid one to make.
At one point in time, Bevell had a place on lists of potential head coaching candidates. That star has faded in recent years, if it ever shined that brightly. For a second straight year he’s getting an interim run as a head coach, as a bad and dysfunctional team ends a bad season. It’s not an ideal situation for him, again. But without Meyer lording over the whole situation and creating distractions, maybe Bevell can start to redeem his potential as a head coaching candidate–with how Trevor Lawrence looks over the final four games as the easiest point of emphasis.
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