Duce Staley Leaves Detroit Lions for Carolina Panthers Coaching Staff

Video Transcription is provided below

Please watch the video above.

DSN News Desk: Duce Staley’s Move to Carolina Panthers

Eric Vincent: Duce Staley Leaves Detroit Lions for Carolina Panthers Coaching Staff: What’s good, Detroit Sports Nation? I am Eric Vincent, your host here at the DSN News Desk. Thank you for tuning in. We appreciate your time and support as some pretty significant news just dropped in here on the news desk. Duce Staley, the assistant running back coach for the Detroit Lions has opted to leave Detroit and is now joining the Carolina Panthers and Frank Reich, the newly hired coach for the Panthers to join his staff, as I believe they’re running back coach.

I don’t know if he’s there, the offensive coordinator, but I’m guessing he’s there as the running back coach. This is pretty important news. This is a pretty big deal, as the Detroit Lions are taking some pretty promising steps towards their future. Duce Staley was a pretty big part of that. We got a pretty good hint at it during hard knocks when we saw Duce Staley’s relationship with D’Andre Swift.

Get a lot of FaceTime because we saw a lot of the fire between those two. We saw and heard how Duce Staley wanted the ceiling for D’Andre Swift to be met, which is what he talked about, the possibility of him being a thousand-yard rusher as well as a thousand-yard receiving, running back. Very tough to do, but Duce Staley thought that was a very possible future for him.

Obviously, it didn’t happen for D’Andre Swift dealing with the injuries that he had to go through, and then obviously splitting time with Jamaal Williams makes it pretty hard to reach those kinds of goals. But even with that not being the case, This run game was pretty significant for the Detroit Lions.

I mean, they were top 10 for a good chunk of the season. I think they finished off in the middle of the pack around 15 if I’m not mistaken. And Duce Stanley was a big part of all that. We saw Jamaal Williams break Barry Sanders‘ single-season Detroit Lions franchise rushing touchdown record with 16 for the year.

We saw his creativity and his passion paired with the creativity of Ben Johnson in scheming for the Detroit Lions offensive line to be very productive and beneficial in terms of how this offense moved. Duce Staley deserves a lot of credit for what we saw from the Detroit Lions this past season. He joined the Dan Campbell regime in 2021 as the assistant and the running back coach, and he’s paid a lot of important dividends for this team.

So important to the fact that if Ben Johnson was gonna leave, which was reported throughout a long period of this off-season. If he was going to leave Duce Staley was one of the hottest names mentioned to replace Ben Johnson as the offensive coordinator. Obviously, that didn’t happen. Ben Johnson ended up staying here with the Detroit Lions, interviewed the Indianapolis Colts, the Carolina Panthers, the team that just grabbed away at Duce Staley, and ultimately, Ben Johnson decided to stay here continue building the promising future of the Detroit Lions.

And I’m not mad at him for that, and I ain’t mad at Duce Stanley for that either. If he thinks the best step for his coaching career is moving in the direction of coaching for a different team with the Panthers and helping their rebuild. Then go right ahead. Yeah. I don’t think it’s as promising as the Detroit Lions, but hey, I can’t be mad at him for what he wants to do.

It’s a big opportunity for him. It’s a new coaching staff where he believes he’s gonna have a lot of responsibility to help assert himself in a better position to better himself as a coach. It’s a pretty big deal. It’s a big deal for the Detroit Lions as well. I haven’t seen any reports on who some suitable replacements would be for the Detroit Lions.

I believe at this point they might have to hire externally for that position because I don’t believe there’s been enough buzz for anybody under Duce Staley to take over at that position. So as of right now, it’s blank. It’s an open position. There’s obviously hiring for it, but this is just another step of what winning teams have to go through.

The assistant coaches are taken off by teams that are rebuilding. They want to come to get your coaches. They wanna come to get your players because they see you doing the right thing. If Duce Staley wasn’t any good, he wouldn’t be hired right now, or he’d be getting demoted in positions that aren’t as promising or uplifting as where he’s at now.

Like we see guys like Anthony Lynn, who started off as an offensive coordinator, kind of get demoted to assistants and like kind of, you know, minuscule positions in coaching for other teams. Now I believe he’s taking an interview right now with the Commanders, to go for their OC, but as of right now, he doesn’t have a job.

And you see that being a pattern again for coaches that are not successful, for players that are not successful. Seeing that Duce Staley was taken by the Panthers, seeing that Aaron Glenn is getting interviews with the Arizona Cardinals, and seeing that Ben Johnson was so sought after by numerous teams in the middle of the rumors, it’s a good thing.

It shows that you’re doing the right thing. It shows that you should have the utmost respect and trust in the front office to find a replacement for Duce Staley. I don’t think it’ll be tough for them to do. I think they can make that happen. I think the Lions are going in a direction right now, that running back position and that grouping is super important because Jamaal Williams is a free agent.

D’Andre Swift only got a, I think a year or two left on his contract. And considering where his health is, it’s not a guarantee on where he is. In terms of the Lions’ future, we don’t know what it holds for him. We don’t know what it holds for Jamaal Williams. The Detroit Lions can be very active in the draft or free agency or in trades, whatever they may do.

They could be very aggressive in upgrading that room and making things pretty different. For the Lion’s future, it’s very possible with how they’re set up for right now. Now again, considering the weapons around them, considering they have a top-five offensive line, considering that Ben Johnson is still here, I have nothing but the utmost faith that running back group and that core will still be as productive as they were last year.

I don’t think they’re gonna take a fall off. I don’t think that’s gonna happen. I think the Lions are gonna upgrade in the draft to boost up at the guard position for the offensive line to solidify the positioning around the tackles and the center, which is what they desperately need. I really think they’re gonna do what’s best for this team.

The smartest thing for this team is to make sure that the running back group is set up for the future. I don’t think they’re gonna take an early gamble with running backs. I think maybe they could, the earliest I can see, is maybe in the second round. But the Lions don’t have good luck in the second round when it comes to running backs.

Like it just doesn’t work out for the Lions, like whether it was “Carry on Johnson” or Mikel Leshoure second round, running backs to the Detroit Lions just don’t work out well for some reason. If not mistaken, I think D’Andre Swift is a second-round running back. So I hope they don’t go that route. I hope they wait a little bit.

I hope they address those first five rounds or the first huge rounds with the biggest picks that they have, with the biggest picks they have. I hope they address them with the biggest needs that they have on the defense, on the offensive line, not so much in the positions that are looked at as a luxury.

Running back to an extent right now is a luxury. You could bring back Jamaal Williams for the cheap. You don’t have to go super gutsy and you know, reach balls for the wall and getting somebody super high with the first-round pick. You don’t have to do that. You don’t have to gamble again on the second-round pick.

There are guys late every season in the running back position. You can wait. You can make that right move. And I have all the trust in faith in Dan and Dan Campbell and Brad Holmes to do the right. I think they will, and we wish the best of luck to Staley. Again, we’re not haters over here. We’re not bitter as a Detroit Lion fan base.

We should wish him well and say thank you to Duce Staley for what you did for this franchise. We wish you nothing but the best for your career and hopefully, we can get the same coming our way as well. Talk to me in the comments section. I’d love to hear your feedback, what your feedback, and your reaction was when you heard that Duce Staley.

is moving on to a different path. I’d love to hear your feedback. Talk to me in the comment section. Make sure you like the video as well and subscribe to the channel. If you’re new to the channel, help us run the subscriptions up to get our way up to 6,000 subscribers. We’re getting closer and closer to making that happen.

Help us with your support. We would greatly appreciate it. Tap in on our social media as. Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, TikTok, and all the above. Search and follow Detroit Sports Nation and lock in with me as well at I am Eric Vincent. Thank you, guys, so much for your time and support. We greatly appreciate it.

I’ll be back here again with another update right here from the DSN News Desk. Peace.

About The Show

Subscribe To Our YouTube Channel

▬ The News Desk with Eric Vincent – Keep up with the latest news, rumors, and analysis on ALL of your favorite Detroit teams with Eric Vincent! New eps daily.

Check out gearupdetroit.shop and get 25% off your purchase by using coupon code DSN25OFF