Does Ben Johnson’s return mean fortune is finally smiling on Detroit Lions?

Detroit Free Press

Is this really happening? Are the Detroit Lions really, finally, at long last finding … good fortune?

Have the football gods grown tired of laughing at Detroit? Have they stopped smiling long enough at their perennial NFL favorites — in Green Bay, Pittsburgh and wherever Tom Brady plays — to wink at the Lions?

It sure felt that way Tuesday night when news broke that offensive coordinator Ben Johnson told the Lions he plans to return to the team for the 2023 season, after he interviewed virtually with three teams for the head coach job.

More than anyone else, even more than Lions head coach Dan Campbell, Johnson was the catalyst for the Lions’ turnaround season that included an 8-2 finish in a 9-8 season that came down to missing the playoffs on a Seattle Seahawks field goal in overtime on Week 18.

The biggest deterrent to the Lions carrying their momentum over from this season to the next was always going to be Johnson’s departure. Not only did he lead one of the NFL’s most dynamic offenses, which finished fourth overall and fifth in points, but he also resurrected Jared Goff’s career and had him playing at an MVP level toward the end of the season.

Seattle’s victory notwithstanding, it suddenly feels like the Lions can do no wrong. They have America’s coach, thanks to great television PR on “Hard Knocks” and Monday night’s ManningCast, they’re hitting on a vast majority of their draft picks, their quarterback is playing great, the defense is playing much better and now the guy in charge of the electric offense is coming back.

Are pilgrims going to start arriving in Detroit to touch the hem of Campbell’s garment? Are they going to start drinking from the Detroit River (please don’t!) to cure their ailments? Will they arrive at Ford Field and pray to Saint Eminem?

It’s hard to say because, other than the brief respite Barry Sanders provided from decades of misery, this is uncharted territory for the Lions. There has been promise with players like Calvin Johnson and Matthew Stafford, and coaches like Jim Schwartz and Jim Caldwell. But it has never felt quite like this.

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There is now a holistic feeling of improvement that has carried from the general manager to the coach to the quarterback to the offensive genius, and even to (trigger warning) the owner, who assured us of her well-placed faith during this season’s darkest moments.

Let’s get this out of the way, too: Johnson didn’t return to the Lions because he’s a nice guy or he got a raise or has a soft spot for Detroit. There’s already a buzz phrase of “unfinished business” going around as a reason for his return. Campbell’s probably in his basement right now silk-screening “Unfinished Business” on hats and T-shirts as he says to himself, “This is so bitchin!” or whatever metalheads in their 40s say.

Johnson doesn’t necessarily scream “NFL head coach” on the outside. He comes across as a well-mannered financial adviser who might say something like, “We could put you in a high-risk, high-yield Jared Goff or a low-risk, slow-growth Hendon Hooker.”

Optics matter to fans, but everyone in NFL hiring circles knows the truth, which is that any candidate who is actually close to grabbing the brass ring never retracts his reach. But let me be clear: The NFL teams that chose not to hire Johnson are fools, because he will become a head coach one day and probably a successful one. If this guy could take Goff off the trash heap with no proven run game, no star receiver, lose his Pro Bowl tight end at the trade deadline and still put up numbers like a pinball champ on meth, he could hire one of the NFL’s worst defensive coordinators and probably win nine games.

That’s the future. As for the present? Well, Lions fans should consider it a gift their offensive mastermind is still working for their team for at least another year. The stars have aligned for a team that has been entirely star-crossed since Bobby Layne cursed them 65 years ago this October. The hex was only supposed to last 50 years, so the Lions have done their time, and then some.

MORE FROM CARLOS:Lions are all-in on Jared Goff, but how far into future is he ‘QB of the future’?

Can it be that fortune is finally finding the Lions after so many times that it has been lost in the lights on a pass to Herman Moore or taken out by Marty Mornhinweg’s tantalizing tailwind or cut down by the longest kick in NFL history — twice. On and on and on.

So maybe now, for at least a little while, fortune as has decided to rest here in Detroit with these Lions so that we can all experience something we haven’t experienced in a very long time.

Welcome back, Ben Johnson.

Contact Carlos Monarrez: cmonarrez@freepress.com. Follow him on Twitter @cmonarrez.

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