Duce Staley's future on display at Senior Bowl

MOBILE, Ala. — Duce Staley is in charge. And this shouldn’t be the last time.

At the annual Senior Bowl this week, Staley is the head coach of the Lions’ American squad of draft hopefuls. It’s a role he’s earned. It’s a role he’s relishing. And it’s a role that ought to become permanent at some point in his coaching future.

His current boss certainly agrees.

“I think he’ll be a head coach in this league and I think he’ll be a damn good one,” Lions head coach Dan Campbell said on Wednesday. “He’s a leader. He’s a leader of men.”

Staley, 46, just finished his first season with the Lions as their running backs coach and assistant head coach. That’s the same title he had with the Eagles when the Doug Pederson era ended after the 2020 season. In January of 2021, Staley interviewed for the head coaching gig that went to Nick Sirianni. Five years earlier, he interviewed for the same head coaching gig that went to Pederson.

When the Eagles bypassed Staley the second time, he knew it was time to move on and he joined Campbell’s staff in Detroit.

The timing of Staley and Jets tight ends coach Ron Middleton — both Black men — serving as head coaches at the Senior Bowl hasn’t gone unnoticed. In fact, Staley was on the field coaching the American squad on Tuesday when news broke of the lawsuit filed by former Dolphins head coach Brian Flores against the NFL and three teams. The lawsuit alleges that the league has discriminated against Flores and other Black coaches, denying them upward mobility.

In the lawsuit, Flores alleges he experienced “sham” interviews for head coaching positions to fulfill the NFL’s Rooney Rule and that some of the teams that interviewed him had no legitimate interest in hiring him.

READ: Could Jermaine Johnson's journey continue with Eagles?

After practice on Tuesday, Staley obviously hadn’t heard much about the lawsuit yet but spoke of his experiences. Staley said it was an “awesome experience” when he interviewed for head coaching jobs before.

Staley was then asked if he feels like he was passed up for other non-Eagles opportunities.

“No, I’m not going to say that,” he said to reporters. “I know that everything that was done in Philadelphia when I was there, it was fair, it was an awesome opportunity. I took advantage of it. I learned from it. And if I had to do it all over again, I’d do it all over again."

In Mobile this week, Staley has taken control of his team from the schedule to practice format and everything else involved. And it seems like Campbell has really enjoyed watching Staley in that role.

“Duce is doing a great job. He really is,” Lions head coach Dan Campbell said. “Duce is all-go, man. He was excited about this. He accepted the challenge. I told him from Day 1, this is yours. I told him if you need anything … but you handle it. … He’s knocked it out of the park. He’s a stud.”

What has stood out about Staley’s on-field practices is the emphasis on competitive periods. In fact, he finished Tuesday’s session with a 1-on-1 battle between Florida State edge rusher Jermaine Johnson II and Kentucky offensive lineman Darian Kinnard. Despite a bullrush that left Kinnard on his back on the first rep, Staley gave the win to the offense after the third rep, which mean the defense had to drop and give him 50 pushups.

Campbell said that that final period was all Duce’s idea — “That’s his own spin, his own flavor.”

Staley spent a decade in the NFL as a running back for the Eagles and Steelers and then joined the Eagles coaching staff under Andy Reid in 2011. He worked his way up from a special teams quality control coach to running backs coach to assistant head coach and he did it working under three different head coaches.

While Staley became a beloved figure in Philadelphia and inside the NovaCare Complex, especially among his players, it still wasn’t enough to help him land the Eagles’ head coaching job.

In his one year with Staley, Campbell has been impressed but not surprised.

“I don’t know if there’s anything I learned that I didn’t know and I mean that in a positive way. I knew what I was getting,” he said. “I knew I was getting a guy that was a hard-worker. I knew he was a grinder, he was smart, he was knowledgable. Just about everybody you put in his room, no matter if he’s been drafted or he’s a free agent, they develop. He did that at Philly, he’s done that for us. He understands how to develop talent and he knows how to talk to these players. He knows how to communicate.”

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Sometimes the “assistant head coach” title can be nothing more than a title. That doesn’t appear to be the case with the Lions.

Throughout the last season in Detroit, Campbell gave Staley an increased role as his assistant head coach, which included plenty of chances to speak in front of the entire team. It’s very similar to the assistant head coach role Campbell held under Sean Payton in New Orleans for five years before the Lions hired him last January.

“It just goes back to the whole year, being in front of the whole team, getting to talk to the team,” Staley said. “You bring that down here, you bring the juice, bring the energy and that’s what we’ve been doing.”

Hopefully, one day, it’ll lead to Staley’s own head coaching job.