We know that Detroit Lions head coach Dan Campbell is funny. If you’ve had a chance to be around him in the press room you know this. If you watched him Hard Knocks then you laughed a lot because of him. Being funny is one thing, being funny and having great timing is whole other aspect. Dan Campbell proved he had the latter in his recent Applebee’s commercial.
It’s really funny here. The thing that makes it the funniest is that he knows how to say things and when to say them. It’s not just an NFL coach on screen being fed lines. He looks a guy that came to the commercial with ideas and the directors listened.
The NFL season is the firm priority for Campbell right now and it should be, but there’s something that goes down in the months following the season that Campbell would be perfect for and that’s Saturday Night Live.
We’ve seen many athletes go host the show before. Chiefs tight end Travis Kelce just hosted this past season. We’ve also seen Michael Jordan, Wayne Gretzky, Lebron James and more. We’ve only seen one NFL head coach hit the stage in Studio 8H in 30 Rock and that was the legendary John Madden in 1982. The thing is that Madden wasn’t an active coach. Campbell would be the first ever.
There’s a lot of similarities between Campbell and Madden. They’re both larger than life personalities and they both seem to be the stars of their respective teams. Even Lions All-Pro receiver Amon-Ra St. Brown said the biggest star on the team isn’t even on the field.
I really think he can do it and I don’t think it would at all be crazy if it actually happened. If the Lions were to win the Super Bowl this February, I could totally see Campbell saying “live from New York, It’s Saturday Night” in March.
Man, I’ve even got the musical guest picked out. Imagine Campbell on the stage after his monologue saying “we’ve got a great show for you, Metallica is here.” It’s too perfect.