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When five-time Pro Bowl defensive tackle Haloti Ngata was traded to the Detroit Lions, it seems everyone knew except head coach Jim Caldwell.
In a town hall meeting with season ticket holders, Lions president Tom Lewand talked with fans about the handling of the trade with the Baltimore Ravens and said that only a handful of team officials knew about the deal before news broke.
The head coach was not one of them:
“We literally finalized the trade with Baltimore; Martin Mayhew and I are on the phone in my office,” Lewand said. “We hadn’t even told Jim yet, and we’re on the phone to (vice chairman) Bill Ford Jr., letting him know that the trade was finalized. And it pops up on Twitter as we’re telling the owner we had just finalized it. We hadn’t even told the head coach yet.”
“The looks on the faces of these guys was like it was Christmas morning and Santa Claus had just come down the chimney,” he said.