RESCUING DETROIT IS JUST ANOTHER WILD-SIDE CHORE FOR DAN CAMPBELL
A city has skidded through misery, yet here’s a 6-foot-5 brute who wants to bite a kneecap off, from rural Texas, and thinks it’s big-boyism that has the Lions in their first NFC title game since 1992
The identity of Detroit? There’s Eminem, on the scoreboard, pointing at the screamers and yelling, “Let’s go!” Overcoming adversity? Screw the robots at Amazon’s immense delivery workplace, on site at the old Silverdome, where the Lions played in the last century through the manufacturing downfall of American automobiles. And biting a kneecap off?
Those were the words of Dan Campbell when he welcomed his person to the centerpiece of football, though not really, as coach of the least illustrious of 32 NFL franchises. It was 2021. No one thought anything except he was a wild-man mishap from a team locked in decades of desperation, ignoring meatballishness in a goateed, gum-chewing gaze while consumed by his own cowboy heritage. People watched and smiled. Until he said, “On the way up, we’re going to bite a kneecap off, and before long, we’re going to be the last one standing.”
Chopped skin? That’s what wide receiver Josh Reynolds called him, saying then, “Oh, yeah, he just seems like a big meathead.” A lot of us assumed much worse and began the countdown to Campbell’s firing day.
And yet, only three years later, here we are, finding the Lions shockingly close to a Super Bowl. With Reynolds catching one of two touchdown passes from Jared Goff, in a feral downtown scene, Campbell has one of four teams remaining in the postseason with a chance of beating the waning San Francisco 49ers on the road Sunday. From politicians to drug lords and anyone who saw “Eight Mile,” no one appears capable of rescuing Detroit from itself. Could a feelgood savior possibly be this man, who pulls out a false tooth when speaking to his team? Can you imagine, the Lions in the Super Bowl, behind this 6-foot-5 brute?
“I envisioned that we would have a chance to compete with the big boys, and that’s where we’re at,’’ Campbell said. “All you've got to do is get in. It's about placing yourself in the very best position to where you can move. Here we are. Now, we get a chance to go to San Francisco. We know what kind of team that is, but we're in a great position. We've got a great opportunity."
Seems the meatball has created caviar, or the best square-steel pizza, in a resounding story. Don’t tell the players they’ve arrived ahead of their time, after a 31-23 victory over Tampa Bay in the divisional round. “When I first got here, I knew that was the goal — just to get our foot in the door,” right tackle Penei Sewell said. “But now that we’re in, it’s time to kick that bitch down.”
This is a carryover of what Goff has said this month, after beating the man who ran him out of Los Angeles, Sean McVay. “This is just the beginning, boys,” he said. “This is just the f—ing beginning. We got more of these motherf—ers.” As chants of “Jar-ed Goff” fill his head from adoring Michiganders in the crowd, he returns to his home in northern California, where he grew up rooting for Joe Montana but now wants to bury Brock Purdy. Goff was taken No. 1 overall in the 2016 draft. Purdy was taken No. 262 in the 2022 draft. Is it time to resume reality? Who knows the story better than Campbell, who resurrected Goff from a trade-deadline bust? Last week, he joked when he said, “You’re good enough for Detroit, Jared Goff.”
Is he now good enough to kick California’s ass? No one believed in Campbell or Goff. Now they’re the biggest stories in the playoffs when, otherwise, no other coach in the business could have saved his wounded quarterback. That’s Campbell in real focus, without back stories that are part of his emerging legend. He grew up somewhere in rural Texas, northwest of Waco, and will explain that he’s a rancher by trade. His first tackle as a junior-high school player explains all, with his father serving early notice as a cowboy and a farmer and a Marine.
“I jumped and hit the bar and I got mad and threw the bar across the track and I said, ‘I quit,’ ” he said. “I was walking off when I hear these feet running like this — clap, clap, clap — he always had his boots and cowboy hat on, and then he tackles me in the back and turns me over. He’s more or less got me in a choke hold and he says, ‘Don’t you ever quit.’ I’ll never forget that.”
He hasn’t in almost four decades. Preaching nothing but belief and motivation, in ways that must make Bill Belichick cringe, Campbell has the Lions playing with muscle and verve that exceed their talent level. They’re a good team. Are they a Super Bowl team? If so, it’s because of a coach, who is doing a bang-up job when Belichick, Jim Harbaugh and Mike Vrabel are looking for league gigs. “He’s the best leader I’ve ever been around, by far,” center Frank Ragnow said. “He authentically loves the guys. Every single day.”
The hiring of Campbell wasn’t done by another cowboy, put it that way. The primary owner of the Lions is a Ford — Sheila Ford Hamp, who took over for her mother, Martha Firestone Ford in June 2020. She hired Brad Holmes from the Rams as general manager. A week later, they hired Campbell.
“He creates that feeling that he’s a teammate of yours,” defensive lineman John Cominsky said. “You know he’s the coach, but he’s like that fiery teammate. He makes everybody buy in because everybody wants to kill for that guy and play for that guy and get wins for that guy.”
This week, he knows his players saw the 49ers luckily survive the Green Bay Packers. He also knows the Lions haven’t been in an NFC championship game since 1992. He will tell them, “You are built for that s—.” Then he’ll say, in a teary-eyed repeat of a locker-room speech: “Do you understand what we’re capable of? That’s two. We have two to go.”
Are they that damned close? Without the 133.6 noise decibels and without Eminem shouting, 2,425 miles from Ford Field? We’ll see, heaven help us, if Dan Campbell can save Detroit.
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Jay Mariotti, called “without question the most impacting Chicago sportswriter of the past quarter-century,’’ writes general sports columns for Substack while appearing on some of the 1,678,498 podcasts and shows in production today. He is an accomplished columnist, TV panelist and talk/podcast host. Living in Los Angeles, he gravitated by osmosis to film projects.