Lions Hire Ex-Jaguars Assistant Deshea Townsend

A day after former Jacksonville Jaguars defensive coordinator Mike Caldwell landed with the Las Vegas Raiders, another former key Jaguars assistant has a new role as well.

According to Bleacher Report's Jordan Schultz, Townsend is set to be the new passing game coordinator for the Detroit Lions, where he will officially work under defensive coordinator Aaron Glenn and head coach Dan Campbell. 

Townsend, who served as passing game coordinator and cornerbacks coach for the last two years in Jacksonville, was fired the day after the Jaguars' 2023 season ended, joining other defensive staff members such as Defensive Line Coach Brentson Buckner, Defensive Quality Control Coach Sean Cullina, Inside Linebackers Coach Tony Gilbert, Safeties Coach Cody Grimm, Defensive Quality Control Coach Tee Mitchell, Senior Defensive Assistant Bob Sutton, and Caldwell.

Every coach but Sutton and Gilbert were hired by Jaguars head coach Doug Pederson in 2022. Sutton and Gilbert were holdovers from previous coaching staffs.

After starting the season on fire through the first eight weeks, the defense allowed 30 points or more in four of the Jaguars' six losses during the second-half of the season, including two such games to Jake Browning and Joe Flacco.

Jaguars head coach Pederson lamented missed assignments and missed tackles on the defensive side through the Jaguars' 1-5 streak over the last six games. This culminated in the Jaguars allowing 28 points to the Tennessee Titans in their season-ending loss, including 21 first-half points and over eight yards per carry.

"We finished I believe ninth in run defense, a little over one hundred and some yards. A big part of that fell apart if you look at where we were the first nine, ten games of the year and where we ended up. There was a huge falloff," Jaguars general manager Trent Baalke said this week.

"Why? A lot of things factor into that. Players got to trust one another. When you start to search for plays and you start to search for answers, whether it’s coaches searching for answers or players searching to make plays and not playing within the scheme of the defense; it’s all it takes for an explosive play. We gave up way too many explosive plays as the season went on, we didn’t protect the ball. We didn’t take the ball away. There’s a lot of things that factor into it. We feel like we have some good players, and we showed that through the first 10 games. Being able to stop the run very consistently, we didn’t do that at the end, so we’ve got to look at why.”