I’ve covered the Detroit Lions for 10 seasons and three different head coaches. I’ve seen the different ways that each guy approaches playing an important divisional game on the road. I’ve never seen anyone go about it the way Lions’ head coach Dan Campbell does.
Sure there’s always an acknowledgement of how important the upcoming game is and there’s always some sort of declaration about how the team wants to win and how hard it could be top do that, especially at Lambeau Field in the elements. Campbell wants it that way. He consistently wants his team to go through the hardest possible challenge because that’s the way he thinks things should just be in the NFL.
“Just reiterating how exciting this is, you know, to be able to play these type of games. These big time games, environment, division game on the road at a place that’s, you know, it’s, it’s one of those things that God created. You know, it’s where football began, a little bit those type of things.’ Campbell said. “We’re looking forward to this. We’ll be in the elements, which is great. This is like one of those, you hope for this, you know. I think we’ll be in all white, so we’ll have the grass stains and everything rolling, man, it’s going to be good old football the way it’s meant to be played. So excited. Great opponent, but our guys are fired up, man…
This is the good stuff, man. This is a good stuff. And, you know, like, I say we got two really good teams, man, fighting for the division, and it’s on the road, and it’s just everything about it is the ultimate competition, you know. And the only thing better is when you start hitting the playoffs. But these type of games are what it’s about. So I think our guys really enjoy it, you know, look forward to it. I know the staff does too.”
You just don’t see it a lot. It doesn’t feel like there’s a lot of teams out there that welcome the opportunity to go on the road and play in the heavy rain and not have a razzle dazzle game. This team talks a lot about how their hardened and I think it’s because they want things to be hard for them because they look at that as another obstacle that they have to overcome.
This is how championship teams should operate. Too often you see a team get good and then fall off afterwards because they started to believe in their own hype. The Lions want you to chop off their legs so they can find a way to beat you with no legs. This is why they’re a championship level team.