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Carmen Vitali
NFL Reporter
While it may seem that the Detroit Lions are currently tearing through the league with reckless abandon this season, they are far from an overnight success.
This current iteration of the Rock ‘Em, Sock ‘Em Lions has been years in the making. And the headlines have hardly told the whole story.
Let’s venture back to January 2021. The Lions were coming off their third consecutive losing season, finishing in the basement of the NFC North. They had fired their head coach (Matt Patricia) midseason. It had been four seasons since they made the playoffs. It had been nearly 30 seasons since they’d won a playoff game.
Quarterback Matthew Stafford’s talents had seemingly been wasted up until this point. Despite surpassing 4,000 yards passing in eight of his 12 seasons in Detroit (and surpassing the 5,000-yard mark in 2011), Stafford had very little to show for it. He was selected to the Pro Bowl just once in that span.
Detroit had very little to show for it, too. They had three appearances in the postseason, all losses in the wild card round. By contrast, and not in a good way, they had finished last in the division five times.
Drastic change was needed in Detroit. And so the rebuild began.
On January 20, 2021, Dan Campbell was named the 28th head coach in Lions franchise history.
Campbell had been the tight ends coach for the New Orleans Saints for the past five seasons. He held the “assistant head coach” designation, as well. It was another stop of his under Sean Payton, whom he both played and coached under.
The hiring was met with mixed reviews. Even more so after Campbell’s infamous press conference a day later where he waxed poetic about biting off opponents’ kneecaps.
Campbell wasn’t the only hire that offseason, either. General manager Brad Holmes was brought in, as well. Holmes had spent his entire executive career up until that point with the Rams, both in St. Louis and…
Source link : https://www.foxsports.com/stories/nfl/dan-campbell-effect-lions-from-laughingstock-juggernaut
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Publish date : 2024-11-27 15:46:00
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