Five days removed from the team’s season-ending loss, Detroit Lions head coach Dan Campbell has three spots to fill on his coaching staff. One is set to be filled, with Kacy Rodgers coming aboard as the new defensive line coach, and the process to fill another spot has started.

As first reported by Dave Birkett of the Detroit Free Press, the Lions are interviewing Larry Foote for their defensive coordinator job left open by the departure of Aaron Glenn to become the new head coach of the New York Jets.

Jordan Schultz of Fox Sports also reported the Lions are expected to interview Foote.

The 44-year old Foote is a Detroit native and a University of Michigan alum. He played linebacker in the NFL for 13 seasons (2002-2014) for three teams, including one season with the Lions (2009) and two Super Bowl rings as a Pittsburgh Steeler before spending his final season with the Arizona Cardinals.

Lions interview Larry Foote as first known candidate to replace Aaron Glenn

Foote got right into coaching as assistant outside linebackers coach for the Cardinals in 2015. After three years he went to be the outside linebackers coach for the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, where he has been for the last six seasons. In 2022, he became the Buccaneers’ inside linebackers coach/passing game coordinator. Like Rodgers, his Buccaneers contract expired at the end of the season.

Per Rick Stroud of the Tampa Bay Times, who seemed to lament the Lions poaching the Buccaneers’ defensive staff as if its not typical business when a coach’s contract is expired, the Buccaneers would like Foote back.

The search to replace Glenn will surely extend beyond Foote, but should he get the job he would reunited immediately with Rodgers in Detroit. Over the six years they were together in Tampa Bay, the Buccaneers defense has ranked in the top 10 in points allowed three times, and it only ranked in the bottom half of the league once (29th in 2019, the first season of the Bruce Arians/Todd Bowles regime).