Friday open thread: What is your biggest concern about the Darrell Bevell hire?

Now that it has been nearly two days since the Detroit Lions announced the hiring of Darrell Bevell as their new offensive coordinator, fans have started to buy in. I’ve seen more and more fans (myself included) do the research on Bevell and understand why Matt Patricia made this choice. Fans generally have a positive outlook on Bevell, with over 70 percent of our readership giving the hire a B or higher.

But just like we must no overreact to the news in the immediate—when a lot of people weren’t happy with the hire—we can’t let ourselves buy in too much. We tend to talk ourselves into moves made by the Lions, whether it be a draft pick, a coaching hire or a free agency signing. It’s in our nature to accept choices made by the Lions, because we’re fans and all he have is hope.

However, it’s important to try and stay as grounded as possible, because there is no guarantee this is the right move, no matter how hard we try to justify it. So today’s Question of the Day is:

What is your biggest concern about the Darrell Bevell hire?

My answer: His ability (inability?) to stay modern and adjust. While tracking Bevell’s quotes throughout the years, he painted a picture of a coach that has grown since he entered the offensive coordinator foray as a West Coast offense kind of guy. However, quotes from Seahawks fans paint a different picture.

Going back to our article with Seahawks blog Field Gulls, this sentence stood out as particularly troubling:

“My biggest gripe with him was that he seemed to completely fail at grasping the modern NFL.”

Flash forward to today, and when Lions Wire did a similar article collaboration with Seahawks Wire, the same concern popped up:

“Worse, is there is nothing that says Bevell is up with the times or innovative in the slightest.”

Now to be clear, I’m not asking Bevell to be one of these new coaches that only passes the ball. I truly believe you can build a steady, productive offense without constantly going five-wide and airing it out.

But if Bevell’s philosophy is to simply run old-school, nondescript football, I’m not sure that will hold up. There still needs to be some sort of element of surprise and adoption of new NFL rules that heavily benefit the offense.

Ultimately, I’m still feeling pretty good about the hire, but there is that voice in the back of my head wondering if Detroit can really pull off the series of seasons in which the Seahawks were among the best offenses for four years straight.

Your turn.