In Darrell Bevell's mind, Brayden Coombs put himself in front of the team. He made a call he was explicitly told not to make. That wasn't something Bevell could abide, so Coombs was fired Monday despite the strong work he's done this season as the Lions' special teams coordinator.
Bevell called it an 'agonizing decision,' one that kept him up 'basically all night' after the Lions' 46-25 loss to the Titans on Sunday. In the end, he did what he thought was best for the team.
"As a leader, as hard as the decisions can be, I think it's important that I have a philosophy and I have a belief in the things that I’m trying to instill in the team, in the coaching staff and in the program," Bevell said Monday. "When things happen that are outside of it, there needs to be something that happens. If something doesn’t happen then really you lose some credibility."
With the Lions trailing 32-18 and facing a 4th and 4 from their own 31 early in the fourth quarter on Sunday, Bevell called for a punt. He confirmed he expressed this to Coombs. Coombs went rogue and called for a fake punt that resulted in a turnover on downs when C.J. Moore took a direct snap and was stopped a few inches short of the line to gain.
The Titans scored a touchdown seven plays later to put the game out of reach.
Bevell said his decision to punt was based on a number of factors, including the fact that Matthew Stafford had just taken two hard hits while playing with torn cartilage in his ribs.
"The decision for me, I have to assess everything," Bevell said. "I’m assessing that the quarterback is not in a good way, also with the score and where we were, we had three timeouts left plus the two-minute warning and Jack (Fox) is punting really well. I thought it was best flip the field and keep us in the game there down two scores."
Coombs, brought in last offseason by Matt Patricia, has been one of the few bright spots on the Lions' coaching staff this year. The emergence of Jack Fox and the re-emergence of return man Jamal Agnew are just two of the things for which he deserves credit. But Bevell felt Coombs crossed a line with his decision on Sunday, a line the rest of his peers respect. And right now, Bevell is the man running the team.
"There are some things you can do that I feel like you can come back from, and then I think there’s some decisions that, you don’t make those decisions. And there’s gotta be repercussions, because there’s a lot of people that are making similar situations in different ways," Bevell said. "So I'm just trying to do what’s best for this team."
The arrival last week of Chris Spielman is worth nothing here. Hired as a special assistant to owner Sheila Ford Hamp and president Rod Wood, Spielman stressed the importance of clear communication throughout the organization in his introductory press conference. He said unity is an essential part of the culture he wants to help create in Detroit. Spielman wasn't involved in the decision to fire Coombs, but it feels like a decision he would have endorsed.
"I always feels it’s important, I tell our coaches all the time, we need do what we say we’re going to do," Bevell said. "Because if we tell these guys something, we need to be able to come through. If we’re going to say, 'Hey, we're doing this,' then I feel that it's important that I come through with that. Sometimes when it goes the other way, there’s moments that you can really help yourself or hurt yourself, and I thought this was really an important moment."
Bevell called it an 'organizational decision,' one that was ultimately approved by Wood.
"With the interim tag, I totally understand my situation," he said. "I understand that I have five weeks to be able to do this for now. I've been giving the authority to manage the coaching staff. So it was my decision to start, but obviously it's one that I cannot make by myself. I do have a boss as well, so I took it to Rod and then waited to hear from him what they thought was best. Clearly, it was an organizational decision, not one that I made on my own."