Lions to hire Bobby Johnson from Jaguars, according to report

The Detroit Lions have a few openings on their coaching staff, and they have been quietly working to fill them. News has been pretty slow on the coaching staff front, but CoachingSearch.com's Pete Roussel reports that the Lions have decided to hire Jacksonville Jaguars tight ends coach Bobby Johnson.

Here's where things get a bit complicated: Roussel reports that Johnson is joining the Lions' staff as the team's new tight ends coach. The problem with that is that the Lions never actually got rid of tight ends coach Tim Lappano after the season. There was a report that Lappano was let go, but it turned out to not be true. So unless something has changed since then, Johnson isn't joining the staff to be the tight ends coach.

What would make a lot more sense is if the Lions decided to hire Johnson as their new offensive line coach. Before joining the Jaguars to coach tight ends in 2012, Johnson was an assistant offensive line coach with the Buffalo Bills from 2010-11. And before ending up in Buffalo, Johnson was an offensive line coach in college football with Indiana from 2005-09.

Assuming Johnson is in fact going to be hired, my money is on him being named the offensive line coach by the Lions. They decided to not bring back offensive line coach George Yarno after the 2012 season, and it makes a whole lot more sense for Johnson to fill that vacancy with Lappano believed to still be on the staff.

UPDATE: Dave Birkett reports that the Lions are shifting Lappano from tight ends to running backs, opening up that job for Johnson.

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