Detroit Lions announce 2025 coaching staff; learn about the new roles and faces
The Detroit Lions announced the team’s full coaching staff for the 2025 season on Tuesday. The full list is attached, followed by bios for the new additions.
Head coach
Dan Campbell
Offensive staff
John Morton – Offensive Coordinator
Scottie Montgomery — Assistant Head Coach/Wide Receivers
Hank Fraley – Run Game Coordinator/Offensive Line
David Shaw – Passing Game Coordinator
Mark Brunell – Quarterbacks
Tashard Choice – Running Backs
Tyler Roehl – Tight Ends
Seth Ryan – Assistant Tight End
Steve Oliver – Assistant Offensive Line
Bruce Gradkowski – Offensive Assistant
Justin Mesa – Offensive Quality Control
Marques Tuiasosopo – Offensive Assistant
Defensive staff
Kelvin Sheppard – Defensive Coordinator
Deshea Townsend – Passing Game Coordinator/Defensive Backs
Kacy Rodgers – Run Game Coordinator/Defensive Line
Jim O'Neil – Defensive Assistant/Safeties
Shaun Dion Hamilton – Linebackers
David Corrao – Senior Defensive Assistant/Outside Linebackers
August Mangin – Defensive Assistant
Caleb Collins – Defensive Assistant
Dre Thompson – WCF Minority Coaching Assistant/Defensive Quality Control
Special teams staff
Dave Fipp – Special Teams Coordinator
Jett Modkins – Assistant Special Teams
Sports performance staff
Mike Clark – Director of Sports Performance
Jill Costanza – Director of Sports Science
Josh Schuler – Head Strength & Conditioning
Corey Smith – Assistant Strength & Conditioning
Support staff
Jesse Giambra – Chief of Staff/Head Coach Administration
Returning coaches in new roles
Montgomery retains his assistant head coaching title while moving from running backs to wide receivers. Meanwhile, after four years of assisting with the receivers, Ryan will serve as an assistant tight ends coach in 2025.
Offensive line coach Fraley, who received offensive coordinator looks this offseason, returns with the added title of run game coordinator.
Defensively, Sheppard gets the bump to defensive coordinator, with Dion Hamilton taking over the linebacker room after serving as Sheppard's assistant the past two seasons.
New faces
John Morton
Morton returns to Detroit after spending the past two seasons as a passing game coordinator in Denver. A longtime college and NFL assistant, he has worked for many of the game's top coaches, including Jim Harbaugh, Pete Carroll and Sean Payton.
A former wide receiver who played collegiately at Western Michigan, Morton has extensive experience coaching the position he played. In 2017, he served as the New York Jets' offensive coordinator.
Morton was a senior offensive assistant in Detroit during the 2022 season, helping craft and implement the offensive scheme that has helped the team finish top-five in scoring each of the past three seasons.
You can read more about Morton's journey back to Detroit here.
David Shaw
The longtime Stanford head coach spent last season as a senior personnel executive in Denver. His closest ties are with Harbaugh, whom he worked for at the University of San Diego and Stanford before replacing him as the school's head coach in 2011.
Shaw's father, Willie, was a defensive backs coach for the Lions from 1985-88, while his son played high school ball at Rochester Adams High School.
Tashard Choice
A veteran NFL running back who rushed for 1,579 and 10 touchdowns across six seasons with Dallas, Buffalo, Washington and Indianapolis, Choice has spent the last eight seasons working as a running backs coach for three college programs.
He overlapped at Georgia Tech with current Lions running back Jahmyr Gibbs before a three-year stint at Texas, where he coached Bijan Robinson.
Tyler Roehl
A college running back, Roehl spent a decade coaching at his alma mater, North Dakota State, racking up seven national championships. He started back at the program working with the running backs and tight ends before serving as the offensive coordinator (while still coaching the tight ends and full backs) from 2019-23.
Most recently, Roehl served as the assistant head coach and running backs coach at Iowa State.
Bruce Gradkowski
Gradkowski played quarterback at Toledo and was a sixth-round draft pick who started 11 games as a rookie in Tampa. He stuck in the league as a backup for several seasons with stops in St. Louis, Cincinnati, Cleveland, Pittsburgh and Oakland.
After he finished his playing career, Gradkowski coached high school for a few years before serving as an analyst at Toledo. Most recently, he was the offensive coordinator of the St. Louis Battlehawks of the XFL.
Justin Mesa
Mesa comes to Detroit having worked as a special teams assistant and tight ends assistant at Washington State. His connection to the staff comes through Morton. The two were together at USC, where Mesa worked from 2007-12 in recruiting and assisting Morton with coaching the school's receivers.
After Morton departed the program, Mesa stayed on and coached the Trojans' tight ends for two seasons. He's also had stints at Wyoming and D-I FCS Dixie State (now Utah Tech).
Marques Tuiasosopo
A first-team All-Pac 10 quarterback at Washington, Tuiasosopo spent the better part of seven seasons as a backup quarterback for the Raiders after the team drafted him in the second round in 2001. He also spent a season with the Jets in 2007.
Tuiasosopo joined Washington's staff as a strength coach in 2009, spent two years at UCLA as a grad assistant and tight end coach, then returned to Washington to coach the quarterbacks.
Over the past decade, he's continued to bounce around college jobs, working for USC, UCLA a second time, and Cal. Tuiasosopo most recently served as the offensive coordinator at Rice.
His stint as Cal's quarterback coach came the year after Jared Goff left the program to go to the NFL.
Kacy Rodgers
A longtime assistant partnered with Todd Bowles, Rodgers spent the past six seasons coaching the defensive line in Tampa, with run game coordinator responsibilities for the past three years.
Rodgers goes way back with Campbell. Rodgers was on Bill Parcells' staff in Dallas during Campbell's playing career, and the two worked together as assistants on Tony Sparano's staff in Miami. Rodgers was the Jets defensive coordinator when Morton was the team's OC in 2017.
You can read more about Rodgers' background here.
August Mangin
A walk-on fullback at LSU, Mangin was a college teammate of Lions defensive coordinator Kelvin Sheppard. Mangin worked a number of college jobs, with two stints at Northwestern State and LSU, as well as one season as an analyst for Nick Saban at Alabama.
Mangin has been with the San Francisco 49ers since 2021, working as a quality control coach and game management specialist on Kyle Shanahan's staff.
Caleb Collins
A college linebacker at Southeastern Louisiana, Collins served as a GA at LSU in 2018 before taking a job at Baylor in 2020. He remained with the Bears through last season, coaching the school's outside linebackers since 2021.
Real nice rundown Justin, thanks a lot for this.
Interesting names and time will tell if it works. Most interesting to me is the front seven this year, lot of coaching turn over on the DL and even at LB with promotions. How this works out could be the whole ball game for this team.
Not all that concerned about losing Ben Johson and Aaron Glenn, they will be mossed but they have good replacements. It might be the loss of Terrell Williams that hurts the worst. Would have liked to see what he did with a healthy group.
Soon there will be an individual coach for every player. How did they ever get by with 3-4 coaches in the olden days?