Wood: ‘We’re not as far away as it might appear’
Detroit Lions team president Rod Wood addressed the media on Tuesday following the team’s disappointing 5-11 recording during the 2020 regular season.
One of the primary debates that supporters of the team have been waging is how to proceed going forward with a roster that simply hasn’t accomplished many of the organization’s goals.
A school of thought is to simply ‘ blow it all up’ and start all over by trading away each and every asset for draft picks.
Another is to retool the roster with the new general manager and head coach.
Wood addressed his personal opinion regarding the roster when asked by MediaNews Group.
“My personal opinion is going to only matter a little bit,” Wood said. “The opinion of who we hire -- the coach and the general manager -- is going to matter a lot more. I do think, despite the record, we’re not as far away as it might appear. I would think that we can retool some things and continue to be competitive. I think in some cases, certainly on the defensive side of the ball, having to rebuild the roster a little bit. So it’s a little maybe a combination of both. There’ll be other people here in the building soon that will have big votes on those two questions.”
Update on GM search
Near the completion of his 20-minute Zoom interview, Wood expressed that the team is likely to hire a candidate for general manager and head coach from the names that have been already released.
“I think we’re probably to the point where we’ve put forward every name that we’re going to consider. But we’ve had names that we’ve considered and restacked and reordered, and there’s a handful we may still pursue,” Wood explained. “But right now I’m assuming that the candidates that we’re interviewing, one of them will be our next head coach and one of them will be our next general manager.”