Lions players support Caldwell
Jim Caldwell was a few months into his first season as Lions coach when he asked safety Don Carey for an impromptu meeting in the defensive backs room.
Caldwell, in the process of getting to know his new players at the time, heard about Carey’s interest in real estate, and as a mini mogul himself wanted to see if he could help.
“We go into the DB room and he asks me for my business plan, and I start spitting it out to him proudly and he has a little smile on his face and tells me I’m doing it the wrong way,” Carey recalled this week. “Not that there was anything wrong with what I was doing, but he just knew a better way. So we spend about 45 minutes to an hour on the dry-erase board going over the mechanics of real estate, from his perspective.”
Carey tweaked his plan of buying, selling and owning homes to conform to the blueprint Caldwell, an avid real estate investor, shared with him that day. Now, three and a half years later, Carey said he’s worked on 20 or so properties using Caldwell’s method with great success.
“It’s been very lucrative,” he said. For Carey and many other Lions, Caldwell has been more than just a coach these past four seasons.
Tight end Eric Ebron said Caldwell was one of the first people he called when he found out he was going to become a first-time father this year.
Defensive end Dwight Freeney still smiles at the thought of a young Caldwell sitting in his living room trying to recruit him out of high school – and the banter they share about that experience to this day. And cornerback Darius Slay said he holds Caldwell up as “a great role model” for the way he wants to parent his children.
“I think he means a lot to a lot of folks around here because it’s more than football to him,” Slay said. “He always gives out a good message of being a man, and a family man at that and a godly one. So he puts a lot of good perspective in your life with him being a young – well, not young no more -- but him being what his age is and very successful at what he does outside of football. He made it clear that football ain’t always guaranteed, so he lets you know that you can do a lot more outside of football.”
If the Lions make a coaching change after Sunday’s season finale against the Green Bay Packers – general manager Bob Quinn has not tipped his hand on what he plans to do, but many across the league suspect a change is coming -- Caldwell’s legacy in Detroit will go beyond wins and losses.
The Lions are 35-28 in the regular season under Caldwell’s watch, but 0-2 in the playoffs.
They lost division-deciding Week 17 games to the Packers in 2014 and again last year.
And this season, they were eliminated from the playoffs with one game to play despite the NFC North being thrown up for grabs when Aaron Rodgers broke his collarbone in October.
Still, it’s tough to find anyone in the locker room who speaks ill of the job Caldwell has done as coach.
“I took a lot of heat from some guys on Twitter cause they were saying Caldwell was the issue. I’m like, ‘Bro, Caldwell’s not the issue,“’ Carey said. “And that’s cool. Fans are going to respond the way they do. They’re hurt, they’re pissed off like I am, like we are, but at the end of the day we see things they don’t. From our perspective, I don’t think anyone in that locker room thinks Coach Caldwell’s the issue.”
Whatever percent of the blame Caldwell deserves for the Lions’ shortcomings this year, he is ultimately the man in charge of a team that even he admits hasn’t won enough football games.