DETROIT – Three years ago, a new head coach walked into the Detroit Lions facility and made a whole bunch of promises.
He was going to build a winner. His players would work hard. His team would make fans proud. And it would embody the city of Detroit.
Dan Campbell has already fulfilled each of those promises.
That introductory press conference was a punchline nationally, but it’s become legendary within the Lions fanbase. A franchise that had gone 0-16 more recently than its last playoff win offered very little reason for hope after firing its head coach and general manager in 2021.
Sure, everybody was fired up after listening to Campbell speak on Jan. 21, 2021, but all those promises? They seemed very farfetched. I’m sure Jim Schwartz and Jim Caldwell and even Matt Patricia thought they were going to build a Super Bowl contender in Detroit.
But each of them fell short. Many Lions fans won’t admit it, but they probably thought that would happen this time around, too.
Instead, just three short years later, the Lions are playing in the NFC Championship Game. They’re the NFC North champs for the first time, and they just brought playoff wins to Ford Field on back-to-back weekends.
Everyone would have been satisfied if Campbell had just come through on his oath to bring Detroit a winner, but he didn’t just build a winner -- he and Brad Holmes did it exactly how they promised.
Campbell spent parts of three seasons in Detroit at the end of his playing career, and apparently that was enough to make quite an impression. He said multiple times during that first press conference that he specifically wanted the head coaching job in Detroit.
“They’re gonna be something this city’s proud of because they’re gonna take on the identity of this city,” he said of his future teams.
Well, as the Lions were polishing off a divisional round win over the Tampa Bay Buccaneers on Sunday evening, I couldn’t help but think of those words as prophetic.
This Lions team does mirror Detroit. Campbell can have “Grit” pained on the walls of Allen Park and Ford Field all he wants, but it’s another matter entirely for the Lions to walk the walk.
Look at the final four teams remaining in this NFL season. Detroit is clearly the one that’s “not like the others.”
You’ve got the two Super Bowl favorites, No. 1 San Francisco and No. 1 Baltimore. In one corner, there’s Christian McCaffrey, Fred Warner, Nick Bosa, and a team that’s been to the NFC title game three years in a row. In the other, there’s Lamar Jackson and a Ravens defense that didn’t allow a touchdown to the red-hot Texans this weekend.
Then there’s the defending Super Bowl champion Chiefs, who come into this weekend after another masterful performance by Patrick Mahomes and Travis Kelce. They’ve got rings on their fingers, Taylor Swift in the stands, and all the playoff credibility in the world.
Those three teams have been talked about as Super Bowl contenders for the entire season -- heck, an entire half-decade. Nobody is surprised to see Mahomes and Jackson and McCaffrey headlining conference championship promos this weekend.
But don’t forget about the Lions. They’re two wins away from hoisting the Lombardi Trophy, just like the rest of them.
Detroit isn’t a city that’s appreciated in the same way as Los Angeles or New York or even Chicago. People who haven’t spent time here think it’s just blight and graffiti and a bunch of has-been automakers.
But just like they were wrong about the Lions, they’re wrong about all that, too.
Craig Reynolds is no Christian McCaffrey, but he scored a key touchdown to help the Lions clinch a divisional round win just the same. Derrick Barnes isn’t Fred Warner, but his interception ensured that both will take the field next week at Levi’s Stadium, as equals, one win from a Super Bowl appearance.
Nobody else will want to talk about Jared Goff before championship weekend, but as Campbell said, he’s good enough for Detroit.
Who embodies the “Detroit vs. Everybody” mentality better than Amon-Ra St. Brown, who memorized the list of receivers drafted ahead of him as motivation? Who better to lead the Motor City’s defense than Aidan Hutchinson, a local hero with a relentless motor of his own?
Campbell isn’t a rocket scientist like our last coach, but he’s a whole lot smarter in ways that matter more to building a team. The Lions don’t have much star power beyond a few players on both sides of the ball, but the sum is much, much greater than its parts.
Most people didn’t expect the Lions to be playing on the final weekend of January, but here they are. They’ll continue to be doubted in San Francisco, but I don’t think they mind.
Detroit is used to proving people wrong.
