Lest we forget.
4 Years ago Robert Saleh was the sexy head coach candidate. He was the hot, young assistant from the 49ers. And every time you'd watch a niners game the announcers would show a weird amount of close up shots of him considering he was an assistant. Then Aikman or whomever would go on about reports that "this guy plays for him and loves him and thinks he would make an excellent head coach."

He was born in Michigan, coached for Michigan state, and was the son of Lebanese immigrants and for those of you who follow politics you may know there is a huge middle eastern population in Michigan. All of the ESPN talking heads commented on how he was "the natural pick" for the Lions. He is also a minority candidate when the NFL needed some good publicity in that area.

The most amusing part of it all was that the Michigan state legislature drafted a formal letter encouraging the Detroit Lions to hire Saleh. They said, ""A lot of us in the Legislature love the Lions and we decided why not throw out a helping hand to guide them toward the coach that we'd like to see come home, who is a Michigan man."

Detroit decided to hire Dan Campbell and pass on Robert Saleh. Dan was NOT the sexy pick, he was an assistant head coach but not even a coordinator he was the Tight Ends coach, and was kind of an unknown. A lot of people in Michigan were upset. The start was kind of rocky too, Dan Campbell had the famous "we will bite your kneecaps" press conference which was non traditional and gave some fodder for the ESPN talking heads. The funny thing to me is that Saleh was said to be a "Michigan man" because no one embodies the spirit of Detroit in terms of being an underdog, tough, etc., better than Dan Campbell.

My point is that sometimes we overrate personality and connection. Just hire the best candidate. If you hire a winner the city will embrace him, period. Do you think any Lions fans care that Dan Campbell grew up in Texas? They're just happy he is a winner and probably a decent coach.