Detroit Lions are now in the interim of their interim coach, as Darrell Bevell will not be able to coach Saturday’s game against the Tampa Bay Buccaneers due to the COVID-19 protocols, sources told ESPN on Thursday.
Sources said Lions will transfer wide receiver coach Robert Prince to the position of head coach and pass the role of defensive player to center back coach Sean Ryan, who has never been a striker at any level in his career.
Prince, who was never a head coach, was an offensive coordinator at Fort Lewis College (1994-95), Japanese X League (1996-97), Portland State (1999-2000) and Boise State (2012-13). He was the coordinator of the pass game in Colorado in 2010.
He’s been with Lions since 2014, brought in by former coach Jim Caldwell.
Lions still have major problems to resolve defensively. Coordinator Cory Undlin and all three top-flight coaches – defense coach Bo Davis, lineback coach Ty McKenzie and defense coach Steve Gregory – were kept away from the facility on Wednesday as close contacts due to COVID-19.
“This was something we had to plan for,” said Bevell on Wednesday. “So, there are contingency plans and, every time something happens, we are making adjustments. I still think we are collecting more information.”
On Monday, squadron linebacker Anthony Pittman and a technician tested positive for COVID-19. The NFL and Lions then began their procedures for tracking close contact and eliminated most of the defense team.
Bevell said on Wednesday that he believes that part of this was due to the trip to the team’s most recent game in Tennessee – Nashville has one of the highest rates of new COVID-19 cases in the country – but on the other hand he is not sure of how your player and coach got the virus.
On Wednesday, Bevell would not “confirm or deny” a Detroit Free Press report that one defense assistant was not using his contact tracker all the time and another had a meeting inside his office.
“We are not going to go into detail about all of this. That goes back to contact tracking,” said Bevell. “When you end up having a positive test, probably what happened to us is that it was probably the perfect storm, in terms of when you have a game away and someone is positive on Monday, they come back 48 hours.
“In a travel situation, you have the plane, you have the hotel, you have the buses, you have the smaller changing rooms in distant places. So, there are a lot of things to examine and a lot of information about it. I’m still working on it all. “
ESPN’s Adam Schefter contributed to this report.