(Photo: AP)
By Michael Stets
ALLEN PARK–The Lions may be on a three-game skid heading into Saturday’s Wildcard matchup with the Seahawks, but after clinching the No.6 seed in the NFC and their second playoff berth in three years, head coach Jim Caldwell will be back for 2017, the team announced on Wednesday.
ESPN insider Adam Schefter was first to report the news on Caldwell’s return for next season. Caldwell’s current deal ends after 2017. No further information or comment was given on whether or not he has signed an extension.
“I want to say, obviously, I’m appreciative, thankful, I’ve expressed my gratitude to Bob [Quinn] and Mrs. Ford and the Ford family and Rod Wood for their support,” Caldwell said on Wednesday. Now I have to also say I want to apologize to you because I’m not going to go into anything other than what I just stated. I’m not going to talk about when discussions happened, if there were discussions.
“I’m not going to talk about the status of our staff or whatever that might be because like I said yesterday, the focus is still about this team. It’s about getting our guys ready. Our guys, all year long, have been absolutely excellent at focusing on what they have to get done and the next team, the next game, moving forward and we want to keep that focus as such. So we’re not certainly going to add to that and complicate it any more than that.”
Caldwell, who is now 27-21 as the Lions head coach and 53-43 overall in the NFL, has the team back in the playoffs in his third season with the team after finishing 7-9 in 2015. The Lions clinched the No.6 seed in Caldwell’s first season in 2014 before losing to Dallas in the Wildcard round 24-20. This season, the Lions started out 1-3, then won eight of their next 9 games before dropping their last three to New York, Dallas and Green Bay, to finish 9-7. The three-game slide coupled with the fact that Caldwell was not a hire of first-year GM Bob Quinn, lead to questions about his future earlier in the week.
Caldwell was asked a question after his opening statement, but quickly shot it down, insisting the focus stay on the upcoming playoff game against Seattle.
“I think I just expressed my gratitude,” he said. “Anything else in regard to Seattle, anything that you want to talk about. It’s a tough team we gotta play. It’s a heck of an opportunity for our team and we are looking forward to it.”
The team will travel to Seattle on Friday for Saturday’s Wildcard game, which kicks off at 8:15 p.m. ET. CenturyLink Field is never an easy place for opposing teams to play due to the loud and raucous environment. In fact, the team has been playing loud music during practice this week to simulate the in-game conditions they will be facing on Saturday.
“t’s always rowdy,” Caldwell said. “It’s always loud. I remember a few years back there was a visiting team that went in that ended up with six false starts, maybe more than that, but I know it was six. Those kinds of things stick out in your mind. It’s difficult to hear. It’s certainly it’s a team that you have to get prepared for in that regard. And we’ve been in some noisy stadiums, but this is a little bit different.”
The Seahawks, NFC West division winners for the third time in four seasons, finished 10-5-1 to earn the No.3 seed in the NFC and fifth consecutive trip to the post season. The last time these two teams faced one another in Seattle was in October of 2015. The Seahawks won that matchup 13-10 on Monday Night Football.
Saturday’s Lions vs. Seahawks game will air live on WJR at 8:15 p.m. ET. The pregame festivities kickoff at 5 p.m. ET with “Detroit Lions Countdown to Kickoff” with Steve Courtney, Sean Baligian and Michael Stets.