Lions assistant coach drawing interest from Buccaneers for coordinator role

The Detroit Lions coaching staff continues to draw interest from other NFL franchises seeking upgrades. On Saturday afternoon, the Tampa Bay Buccaneers announced they had completed an interview with Lions assistant special teams coach Jett Modkins for their vacant special teams coordinator position.

Modkins’ coaching career started as a defensive coach at Akron University, and he got his first break in the NFL in 2020 with the Denver Broncos as a diversity coaching intern, assisting with the offense. The next season, he would join Lions’ coach Dan Campbell’s inaugural staff in Detroit as the team’s assistant special teams coach, working alongside special teams coordinator Dave Fipp.

While Modkins’ experience as an NFL coach is still in its early stages, he’s been around football his entire life—his dad is former Lions RB coach (2013-15) and current Vikings RB coach Curtis Modkins—and has been on head coaches’ radars for some time. Last offseason, the San Francisco 49ers also interviewed Jett for their special teams coordinator role, but they ultimately went with the more experienced Brant Boyer.

Modkins has been a valuable part of the Lions coaching staff for the last five seasons, often contributing in multiple areas. Here’s an excerpt from Fipp last November on what he looks for in an assistant coach and why Modkins has been so successful doing these things in Detroit:

“Yeah, Jett—I mean, what we were looking for is a guy who obviously is really hungry about coaching football. My assistant needs to have a lot of computer skills. […] Every week, you’ve got to put in all the new pictures, all the new drawings, where the other team’s kicking the ball on the kick charts, and just a lot of data information that we end up presenting to the players or using to build a plan. And so he does a ton of that stuff, so obviously being able to handle the computer stuff was a big part of it. […] High motor, energy, energetic, bright future ahead of them, good person, honest, direct. You want a guy who can handle the players and not acquiesce to those guys but be able to tell them what they need to do and be able to project my word and message or our word and message. And he’s done a great job since he’s been here.”

We’ll have updates on Modkins’ status, and the rest of the Lions coaching and front office staff news in our annual 2026 Detroit Lions coaching news with our tracker.