The Detroit Lions are now in the interim head coach’s position as Darrell Bevell will not be able to coach Saturday’s game against the Tampa Bay Buccaneers because of COVID-19 protocols, sources told ESPN on Thursday.
Sources said the Lions will move Robert Prince on the receiving coach as head coach and transfer the game to coaches Sean Ryan, who has never been a player at any level in his career.
Prince, who has never been head coach, was the offensive coordinator at Fort Lewis College (1994-95), the Japanese X League (1996-97), Portland State (1999-2000) and Boise State (2012-13). ). He was the coordinator of the passing game in Colorado in 2010.
He has been with the Lions since 2014, brought in by former coach Jim Caldwell.
Lions still have major problems to solve defensively. Coordinator Cory Undlin and all three head coaches – defensive line coach Bo Davis, defensive end coach Ty McKenzie and defensive end coach Steve Gregory – were kept out of the facility on Wednesday as close contacts thanks to COVID-19.
“We had to plan for that,” Bevell said Wednesday. “So there are contingency plans, and every time something happens, we make adjustments. I still think we’re gathering more information.”
On Monday, coach Anthony Pittman and a coach gave positive results at COVID-19. The NFL and the Lions then entered their close contact procedures and eliminated most of the defensive personnel.
Bevell said Wednesday that he believes some of this happened because of 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 otherwise it is not certain how the player and coach contracted the virus.
On Wednesday, Bevell will not “confirm or deny” a Detroit Free Press report that one assistant defense attendant did not constantly carry his contact tracking officer and another held a meeting in his office.
“We will not go into details about this. He is returning to tracking contacts,” Bevell said. “When you get to have a positive test, what probably happened to us is that it was probably the perfect storm, in terms of the moment when you have a game away and you have someone positive tested on Monday, they come back 48 hours back.
“In a travel situation, you have the plane, you have the hotel, you have buses, you have smaller locker rooms in remote places. So there’s a lot of things to sift through and a lot of information about that. I’m still working through it all.”
ESPN’s Adam Schefter contributed to this report.