Tony Dungy seems to be content in his role on NBC's Football Night in America. At least content enough that he's not going to come out of retirement to coach the losingest NFL franchise of the modern era – the Detroit Lions.
From Dave Birkett of the Detroit Free Press, Dungy reportedly turned down an interview with the team before the Lions moved on to Jim Caldwell:
One of Martin Mayhew’s first calls when the Lions started their search for a new coach was to Tony Dungy, and one of Mayhew’s first questions to Dungy was if he’d be interested in coming back to the sidelines.
“He said, ‘I got to start this off, are you interested at all?’” Dungy told the Free Press today. “And I said, ‘No, Martin, I’m not.’ And then we went on. We were able to talk about what we needed to talk about.”
Dungy went on to vouch for Jim Caldwell, who went 26-22 as his successor in Indianapolis, and so the Colts "settled" for Caldwell.
That's a shame for Lions fans, because Dungy has nine playoff wins and a Super Bowl on his resume. Plus, he probably deserves a ton of credit for the Super Bowl winner he helped build in Tampa before leaving Jon Gruden to take all the accolades. Funny how those two, along with maybe Bill Cowher, have become the most talked-about potential retread head coaches in the broadcasting world yet have all stayed on the TV side for multiple seasons.
Dungy is only 58, so a handful of head coaches are older than him. In fact, Tom Coughlin has a decade on him. But he's now been a studio analyst for five years. He's well respected throughout the NFL community and is pretty decent on television. It's tough to come back after that much time away, and Dungy has never indicated that he's craved a return.
“No, I really wouldn’t,” Dungy said when asked if he'd consider returning to the Buccaneers last year, according to the Bright House Sports Network. “I hope they don’t have to make those changes, but for me, it was 28 years in football. I had a great time when I was doing it, I just moved on to another lifestyle and another set of goals.”
