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Detroit Lions’ Coach Dan Campbell Is True Blue, Right Down To His Kneecaps
Three years ago, the Detroit Lions introduced their new coach, Dan Campbell, in a press conference that was, well, let’s just call it gritty in the extreme. When asked what the football world could expect to see in his Lions and what his coaching philosophy would be, he replied that people were tired “of the same old “sh*t,” and rather than give them another dose of coach speak, he spoke off the cuff.
“I wanted this job … bad. Because I felt like I knew this community. I played here,” Campbell began. He went on to say that as far as team identity or culture went, this team was going to take on the identity of the city of Detroit. “This city has been down. It’s found a way to overcome adversity,” Campbell continued. “This team is going to kick you in the teeth … and when you knock us down, on the way up we’re going to bite a kneecap off … and we’re going to get up … and if you knock us down again, we’re going to get up and bite off the other kneecap.”
The clip was a head-scratcher and a headline-maker. Memes followed – the Detroit Lions were all about biting kneecaps – and went viral, some affectionate, but most incredulous and totally convinced that here, in the person of a coach who in truth looks like 10,000 auto workers in Detroit, only a bit bigger, was another reason to make the Lions the butt of a joke.
And by the way, Detroit’s faithful know what it is to field a joke of a team, having failed to win a single playoff game in 32 years and only winning two playoff games since 1957. Campbell may have lost the press conference, but he won the locker room by a landslide, becoming exactly the leader that the Detroit Lions and Detroit, itself, needed, which was somebody who bled silver and blue.
Can passion and belief carry the day? Just ask Detroit’s quarterback Jared Goff, who threw 22-of-27 for 277 yards and a touchdown on Sunday to lead the Lions to a 24-23 win over the Los Angeles Rams, thus securing Detroit’s first playoff win since 1992. Goff came to Detroit in 2021 in a quarterback swap with Matthew Stafford, who went to Goff’s old team, the Rams, and won a Super Bowl. (For the record, Stafford also had a very good game on Sunday; just not as good as his old swap mate.)
While Goff said he was originally disappointed and upset upon learning of being traded to Detroit, he added that his mood brightened within 30 minutes of talking to the Lions and their believer-in-chief Campbell and hearing about their enthusiasm for him.
“Oh my God, this is how it’s supposed to feel,” recalled Goff upon coming under the aura of Campbell’s positivity. “This makes me feel great — how excited they were, how fired up they were.”
With belief oftentimes comes improvement, and with Goff under center and some new draft picks who came along with him, the lowly Lions went from 3-10-1 in 2021, to 9-8 in 2022 and 12-5 in 2023.
Can happy and grateful win playoff games? Just ask Goff and receiver Amon-Ra St. Brown. With less than two minutes to play, the Lions had the ball and could have done the conversative thing and run the ball to use clock, especially since the Rams only had one timeout left. But Campbell wanted to get the ball in the hands of his “best player,” so he had Goff pass the ball to Brown for an 11-yard first down that effectively sealed the victory. All that remained was the flowing of tears from the eyes of big, burly Detroit fans.
