Jamie: Case against Caldwell keeping job gets stronger

Jamie Samuelsen, co-host of the "Jamie and Wojo" show at 6 p.m. weekdays on WXYT-FM (97.1), blogs for freep.com. His opinions do not necessarily reflect those of the Detroit Free Press nor its writers. You can reach him at jamsam22@gmail.com, follow him on Twitter@jamiesamuelsen and read more of his opinions at freep.com/jamie.

The Detroit Lions. Is it really time to start wondering if Jim Caldwell will make it through the season?

Joe Lombardi is out. So are offensive line coaches Jeremiah Washburn and Terry Heffernan.

It's only logical to wonder whether Jim Caldwell will go next.

Caldwell is fully under the microscope after the Lions' ugly 28-19 loss to the Vikings on Sunday. The Lions are now 1-6 on the season and 12-12 in Caldwell's one and a half years on the job (including the postseason). In 2014 he was the calming, forceful leader who pushed all the right buttons in leading a talented roster into the playoffs. This year, the team looks disorganized, undisciplined and overmatched. What changed from an 11-5 year to a 1-6 year?

Clearly, there is a talent drop-off. The offensive line hasn't adjusted to the departures of Dominic Raiola and Rob Sims and the injuries to Larry Warford and LaAdrian Waddle. The defense misses Ndamukong Suh and DeAndre Levy (I'd argue that they miss Levy more than Suh). Rashean Mathis and James Ihedigbo both look a year older and about five years slower. Golden Tate and Joique Bell had strong years in 2014. They're not having those years in 2015.

But there also is coaching mistake after coaching mistake which were masked last year by wins. This year, they're leading to losses. Last season, Caldwell mangled the clock down the stretch in the London win against the Falcons, running a play as the clock was winding down at the end of the fourth quarter. The Lions were stopped in the middle of the field without a timeout, but fortunately for Caldwell, the Falcons were called for defensive holding which gave the Lions a chance to get the field goal team onto the field and allowed Matt Prater to kick a game-winning 48-yard field goal. Caldwell coached poorly in that game down the stretch, but he was bailed out by Falcons coach Mike Smith who just happened to have a worse game (and was fired at the end of the season.).

The same thing happened a week ago in the Lions lone win against the Bears. With 2:51 remaining and the Lions trailing by a touchdown, Caldwell elected to kick a field goal on fourth-and-four from the Bears 13-yard line instead of going for it. Prater again kicked a field goal. The Lions stopped the Bears and were able to score the go-ahead touchdown with 25 seconds left. The Bears tied the game and the Lions won in overtime. The talk after the game was about how Matthew Stafford responded to pressure and Calvin Johnson re-emerged in the passing game. The talk would have been about Caldwell just as it should have been about Caldwell at the end of the Falcons game last season.

That brings us to Sunday, where Caldwell made several puzzling decisions. Instead of challenging the jump ball at the goal line where Johnson appeared to break the plane with the ball, Caldwell instead chose to rush his offense out on the field and try to punch it in from the one. If that had worked, and the Lions had scored, nobody would have even remembered the Johnson play. But because Caldwell (and Lombardi) called for plays to George Winn, Michael Burton and Theo Riddick, the Lions walked away from that sequence scoreless and the game was essentially over.

There were other issues in the game. The offensive line could never adjust to the multiple Vikings blitzes. Caldwell said afterwards that those were missed assignments and that the team looked "inept" at times. That's on the coaching, not on the players. That's probably a large reason why Lombardi, Washburn and Heffernan are all out of work today. The Lions were forced to call a time-out when they only had 10 men on the field after a change of possession -- something that has happened to them before this season.

When things are going well, and you're getting some breaks, coaching mistakes are often glossed over. When players aren't performing and the losses are piling up, the coaching mistakes become far more obvious. Caldwell had a great year last year in terms of unity, motivation and performance. The bottom line is that he coached an 11-win team, and nobody can knock that off his resume. But a closer look shows games the Lions won at the end, eked out when they didn't need to and in some cases, were lucky to have.

This season, the luck has gone away and the decisions look even worse. It's one thing to be physically overmatched in a game. But when you can start pointing to specific questions that have no answers, that makes the head coach look bad.

Why weren't the Lions better prepared for the Vikings blitz?

Why wasn't Caldwell at least familiar with the "bat" rule that the Seahawks broke on the crucial Johnson fumble on Monday night football.

Why have the Lions had to call time-out TWICE this season after a dead ball situation?

Why didn't he challenge the Johnson play on the goal line against the Vikings? The Lions have had a hard enough time scoring points this season (19.9 points/game, 29th in the NFL). They should never be taken for granted.

Even though it led to a win, why did Caldwell kick the field goal against the Bears last Sunday. It makes no sense from a math standpoint or an in-game standpoint.

Why have the Lions been so reluctant to throw deep to Johnson except for a few occasions during the year?

Why go to Winn and Burton at a vital moment in the game?

Why would he tell Stafford during the Arizona game that he would be coming out after one more interception? Is that the way to motivate a vital player heading into the second half?

These are questions off the top of my head looking at what's transpired during the first seven weeks of the season. Perhaps there are answers to some. Perhaps I'm wrong to ask others. But I think that these paint a bad picture of Caldwell. Before firing Lombardi, Caldwell would simply answer with "everything will be evaluated" and "we have to work harder."

It's true that the Lions don't have the talent of some of the better teams in the league. But when you're deficient in talent, it's up to the coach to make sure that the other team doesn't get any added advantage. That's exactly what's happened so far in 2015.

The Lions have been outplayed. That's on the players. But in almost every one of the Lions six losses, Caldwell has been outcoached. He made the bold move Monday to fire part of his coaching staff. It comes a little bit too late to salvage this season. Things better improve in a hurry or Caldwell will be the next one to go. After all, there's nobody left to fire other than the man making all the decisions.