Tuesday open thread: Are you rooting for Darrell Bevell?

On Monday, Detroit Lions interim head coach Darrell Bevell made his first public press conference since taking over the position left vacant from Matt Patricia’s firing. It was hard not to feel great for the guy, seeing has he was beaming with excitement and had just said weeks earlier that this was something he had been striving for in his 20+ year career. He was also refreshingly honest, and just seemed like a guy who could actually win over a locker room quite quickly.

Of course, he’s in a terrible spot to succeed, though. The Lions’ roster is not very good right now, and Detroit’s schedule is daunting, to say the least. And if we’re being completely honest, if Bevell finds any success in the final five games of the season, it’s only going to hurt the team in the long term. They’ll get a worse draft pick, and it also may convince ownership that Bevell could be worthy of the head coaching position, as team president Rod Wood told Bevell that was a possibility.

So today’s Question of the Day is:

Are you rooting for Darrell Bevell?

My answer: Yes I am. You’d be hard pressed to find a single situation in which I’m not rooting for the Lions on Sundays. It’s just not any fun to me rooting against them. Plus, my rooting isn’t going to change the fact that this team is likely to go 2-3 at best over the next three games, with 1-4 and 0-5 just as likely.

Plus, even if the Lions do win a few games, it may earn Bevell and interview, but I would hope Detroit still does an exhaustive search elsewhere, as owner Sheila Ford Hamp seemed to imply on Saturday.

In short, Bevell is a good guy who finally earned his first shot as a head coach. There’s no way I can root against that, even if success will marginally hurt the Lions in the long run. Plus, I’m very curious to see how the offensive game plan changes without Patricia at the helm.

Your turn.