SANTA CLARA, Calif. — At the time, I thought the man was crazy. The Detroit Lions had squandered a golden opportunity to reach their first Super Bowl, blowing a 17-point halftime lead and losing to the San Francisco 49ers in last January’s NFC Championship Game. In the despondent visitors’ locker room at Levi’s Stadium, Dan Campbell, the Lions’ third-year head coach, told his players, “This may have been our only shot.”
Gulp.
The next day, things got even more surreal: Campbell recounted the sobering moment for reporters, copping to the magnitude of the defeat and underscoring the improbability of replicating the opportunity.
Why would Campbell, seemingly a master motivator, lay things out so bleakly? Why would he go there as his team was grieving and heading into a long, regretful offseason?
“Because he lives in reality,” Lions quarterback Jared Goff told me last month. “The reality is, we may never be back again. It doesn’t matter. There are so many things that have to align, that have to go right, for you to win a Super Bowl, for you to be in that position in an NFC Championship Game. To be up 24-7 at halftime, that doesn’t just happen. You have to do it, and there are some things that have to go your way along the way. So yeah, he was living in reality, and it’s still true.”
The reality is, it has taken me a long time to appreciate Campbell’s leadership approach, from his unflinching faith in his instincts to his high-risk decision-making to his disregard for established rules of his vocation. More clarity arrived Monday night when Campbell and the Lions returned to Levi’s and — against all logic — went all out to win a game that bore little to no impact upon their playoff positioning.
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Detroit’s 40-34 victory over an already eliminated 49ers team didn’t change much: The Lions (14-2) will host the Minnesota Vikings (14-2) Sunday night to decide who wins the NFC North and earns the conference’s No. 1 playoff seed and first-round bye. Barring a tie in that game, beating the 49ers won’t have mattered at all.
Nonetheless, heading into a short week, the coach of a Super Bowl aspirant that has already been ravaged by injuries to important players plowed through the impulse to play it safe and kept charging. He sent it. His players understood and approved.
And even a skeptical sportswriter who has seen seasons ruined by regrettable late-December injuries started to get it.
No, the 48-year-old coach whose introductory news conference (which featured proclamations of kicking opponents in the teeth and biting their kneecaps) isn’t a caricature.
In reality, Dan Campbell is a vibe.
“We’re balls to the wall,” safety Brian Branch said after Monday’s victory over the 49ers. “I’m glad he didn’t let us rest this game. I feel like we needed to work on the little things. Also, they beat us (last January). We feel like it was personal.”
Said star right tackle Penei Sewell: “To the outside eyes, it may seem like it doesn’t matter. But to us, every game matters. We’re trying to chase greatness. We just stay true to ourselves. It doesn’t matter what anyone else is saying. We follow a man that puts down a blueprint that we trust in. We go by that.”
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Campbell, who spent 11 seasons as an NFL tight end, isn’t simply a “players’ coach.” He’s a tone-setter who, a decade and a half after his last NFL game, has retained the mindset of a man who laces up his cleats and puts his body and soul on the line in a fierce, emotional and sometimes terrifying setting. It helps that he looks and acts the part.
“He could probably suit up if we were desperate and needed him to — and just call plays from the huddle,” veteran guard Kevin Zeitler said. “Coach Campbell is all culture and attitude, and it’s infectious.”
A year ago at this time, Campbell’s attitude was on display for a football-watching nation, and it was jarring. Trailing 20-19 to the Dallas Cowboys in a pivotal Week 17 road game, Campbell predictably called for a two-point conversion, but the Lions’ successful try was negated because officials said left tackle Taylor Decker had failed to report as an eligible lineman.
Incensed by what he thought was an officiating error, Campbell kept his offense on the field and went for two again — this time, from the 7-yard line. After an offsides penalty pushed the ball to the 3 1/2, the Lions were denied a third time and lost the game.
Since Campbell became head coach in 2021, Detroit’s 82 fourth-down conversions lead the NFL, per Stathead. (Photo: Mike Mulholland / Getty Images)
To me and many others, Campbell’s bullheaded insistence on getting two points — and proving his point — seemed silly. Upon further review, it’s part of a package that has turned around a flailing franchise, one which last January would win its playoff games in 32 years. The audacity behind that transformation traces directly to Campbell.
As it turns out, his stubbornness is also his superpower.
I learned that while reporting a profile on Goff, who rebounded from being written off as an NFL quarterback to become an elite passer — and, in 2024, a legitimate MVP candidate.
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Even after the Lions went 3-13-1 in 2021, Campbell and Goff’s first season in Detroit, and started 1-6 the following year, the head coach stuck to his convictions. He refused to bench Goff or to back off from his approach. Together, the Lions fought through adversity and came out the other side. Because of that, their trust in Campbell is immeasurable.
“I think the reason he’s able to do the culture stuff is because of that first year and a half,” Goff said. “He never wavered. He didn’t turn his back on anyone. A huge part of that nucleus from 2022 is still here.
“And we all like are like, ‘Dude, we went through that with you. And you stood in front of us every Monday meeting, with the same attitude, with the same belief in us, with the same belief in the way we were doing things.’ Now he could tell us, ‘Hey man, we’re gonna do 10 jumping jacks for practice,’ and we’d be like, ‘All right, it’s gonna work.’ It’s total buy-in, because of the way that he believed in us early on when he didn’t necessarily have to.”
Campbell agreed, telling me that the team’s struggles in 2021 and ’22 “shaped us. It’s made us what we are; it’s made us better. And it’s made us to where we don’t ever want to go back to that. We don’t ever want to see that again. We don’t even want to smell that.”
Last Wednesday morning Campbell — who had already telegraphed his intentions to the media two days earlier — told his players to be ready to go all-out against the 49ers, even if a Vikings victory over the Green Bay Packers on Sunday lowered the stakes: “Hey guys, just so you know, we’re going — no matter what.”
Nobody was surprised.
“As soon as you take the foot off the gas, bad things happen,” Goff said. “Especially with the way we’re made. We just go.”
Outside the locker room, the decision was less clear. The Lions have suffered brutal losses in 2024, including star edge rusher Aidan Hutchinson, linebacker Alex Anzalone, defensive tackle Alim McNeill, cornerback Carlton Davis and running back David Montgomery. If they’d sustained further injuries in Monday’s game — if someone like Goff or Sewell or wideout Amon-Ra St. Brown or running back Jahmyr Gibbs or safety Kerby Joseph had gone down — Campbell would have been crushed for his recklessness.
Clearly, he wasn’t living in fear. For what it’s worth, one highly successful coach in the Lions’ locker room — recently signed backup quarterback Teddy Bridgewater, fresh off guiding Miami Northwestern to a Florida Class 3A state championship a couple of weeks ago — agreed with the approach.
“You ain’t supposed to (back off),” Bridgewater said. “You don’t play the game to lose; you play to win. Dan’s the real deal.”
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Campbell’s gamble paid off: The Lions won without sustaining any serious injuries. Their effort was completely on brand, with two huge fourth-down conversions in the second half (one of which, Goff’s 4-yard touchdown pass to St. Brown with 19 seconds left in the third quarter, put Detroit ahead for good) making up for an unsuccessful red-zone attempt in the second quarter.
4th down touchdown to @amonra_stbrown 🙌#DETvsSF | 📺 ESPN/ABC pic.twitter.com/92occ08qYX
— Detroit Lions (@Lions) December 31, 2024
Cutting-edge offensive coordinator Ben Johnson put his strategic acumen on full display, most glaringly on the Lions’ second touchdown, with 10:09 left in the second quarter. On third-and-12 from the 49ers’ 42, Goff threw a quick, 1-yard pass to St. Brown, who executed a perfect hook-and-ladder pitch to Jameson Williams and watched his fellow wideout race down the Lions’ sideline for the score.
After closing out the victory, Campbell’s players left the field having completed an 8-0 record away from home — something which bodes well if they do lose to the Vikings and enter the playoffs as the No. 5 seed. Campbell got to the locker room early, hovering in the hallway and emphatically greeting the men in uniform as they rolled in.
Once the last stragglers arrived, he brought up the team and got emotional as he spoke. As he had in an identical setting 11 months earlier, Campbell kept it real. This time, the message was far more uplifiting.
“I got an unbelievable amount of respect for you guys,” he said. “I know what this was. And there’s all these arguments about ‘what did this game really mean?’ because the next week. … I respect the f— out of you guys. I respect the f— out of how we roll the ball out and you guys just go out and compete.
“I can’t even put it into words, man. I cannot put it into words. I love the hell out of you guys. I love the hell out of you guys.”
(Top photo: Thearon W. Henderson / Getty Images)
