The Detroit Lions faced the inevitable departure of offensive coordinator Ben Johnson, who took the head coaching job with the Chicago Bears. To fill this role, they hired John Morton, who most recently served as the Denver Broncos’ passing game coordinator for two years.
Morton’s primary task will be to maintain the high-performance level of one of the NFL’s best offenses, a unit that flourished under Johnson’s play-calling. However, Morton will certainly bring his own influences to the team, adjusting elements of the offense while keeping head coach Dan Campbell’s core principles intact, drawing from his extensive coaching career that began in 1998.
Over the years, Morton has worked alongside well-known offensive minds like Sean Payton, Jon Gruden, and Jim Harbaugh, all of whom have repeatedly hired him. Despite having only called plays for an entire season once, during his time as the New York Jets’ offensive coordinator in 2017, Morton’s leadership during that challenging period does not reflect his capabilities as an offensive strategist.
Campbell himself highlighted Morton’s significant impact on the Lions’ offense as a senior assistant in 2022. “John Morton, man, Johnny was – Johnny’s a superstar now and there’s a number of things that he did for us last year that are things that we’ve kept,” Campbell said. “And I really feel like that helped Tanner as well. And he took a lot of that, and he learned from that, and he’s grown from that.”
While Johnson was able to get strong results from many players, there were occasional lapses and areas of inconsistency. With that in mind, these three Lions players are expected to see considerable improvement under Morton’s leadership.