The first shoe drops in the aftermath of another disappointing Lions season, and perhaps the most anticipated.

According to published reports, the Lions have let special teams coordinator Stan Kwan go, leaving just two position coaches or coordinators — Sam Gash (running backs) and Shawn Jefferson (wide receivers) — held over from the Matt Millen-Rod Marinelli era.

The Detroit News’ John Niyo confirmed the move with a phone call to Kwan, who had been with the Lions for 10 seasons, including the last three in charge of special teams, after the retirement of his mentor, Chuck Priefer.

Lions head coach Jim Schwartz was asked about potential turnover on his coaching staff in Monday’s season-ending press conference.

“There are always changes in the NFL. I don’t want to lock into one way or the other because there are some things that happen for a lot of different reasons. That’s part of the evaluation,” Schwartz answered. “Right now we’re still working on players and things like that but there are a lot of stages to the evaluation of players and coaching staffs and scheduling and schemes and things like that. That stuff will come through.”

The rest of Lions’ staff is headed to Mobile, Ala., later this month to coach the North squad at the Senior Bowl. The Jan. 30 game will mark the eighth time — and the first since 2003 — that the Lions coaching staff has coached the Senior Bowl.

UPDATE: The Lions confirmed the dismissal of Kwan in an e-mail on Monday.