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ALLEN PARK, Mich. — The Detroit Lions fully embraced the underdog mentality in 2021 after Dan Campbell’s infamous kneecaps press conference. They leaned on it when they didn’t get a win until Thanksgiving, and it was still a thing even as they turned the corner midway through the 2022 season.
Last year, finally, was the breakthrough. A 12-5 season. An NFC North title. Racking up more playoff victories in two weeks than the previous six decades combined.
The 2024 Lions can’t be the underdogs anymore, right?
“I don’t feel that we’re in this underdog…,” Campbell started to tell me last week at minicamp. “I think our guys know where we’re at. I would say this: the motivator is we still have things that we circle, too. We have our own shitlist. So we’re the team with the target on our back, but we’ve circled some people too now. We have targets, too.
“It’s not like we just ran through everybody last year and blew everybody out. We had losses and tough games. We have division opponents. We lost in the NFC Championship Game. So we’ve got our own targets man. And that’s the motivator.”
Things are the same, but different, with these Lions. They’ve dealt with the hype, and now they’re dealing with the expectations.
Campbell was the frontman for this band when he took over in 2021. Perhaps the (literal) strongest head coach in the NFL, Campbell was always the voice of the team internally and externally.
But the plan all along was to have the players lead this team. Amon-Ra St. Brown, Alim McNeill, Penei Sewell all had to grow up in the program. Veterans like Frank Ragnow and Taylor Decker had to re-learn what it was like to win. Even the quarterback, Jared Goff, had to build back his confidence.
And Campbell saw last year that the paradigm had shifted. He wouldn’t need to speak up in a team meeting as much because one of the players already had.
“Until they take the reins, then it’s…
Source link : https://www.cbssports.com/nfl/news/no-longer-underdogs-the-lions-still-have-plenty-to-prove-with-dan-campbell-and-jared-goff-leading-the-charge/
Author : Jonathan Jones
Publish date : 2024-06-10 19:57:41
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