Lions’ Dan Campbell Send Message to the NFL

The Detroit Lions have emerged as the NFL’s top club in league-wide power rankings.

After another game in which they exhibited few, if any, flaws, Detroit has risen to the top of the NFL. In doing so, they’ve demonstrated a relentless, physical style predicated on attacking with passion regardless of the opponent.

This method has enabled them to pursue their Super Bowl dreams, overwhelming opponents such as the Jacksonville Jaguars in the process. This is the result of their relentless pursuit of a championship and unwavering desire to develop.

“The Lions are always looking to improve. The Lions have not won a Super Bowl yet, so the culture is keep getting better. Keep proving yourself,” this writer said. “The Lions still have that belief that everyone is looking at them like a second-rate contender. You still have people that doubt Jared Goff. I still think the Lions have that ‘Us against the world’ mentality and still trying to prove themselves, as well as trying to get that taste out of their mouth from the stinging loss to the 49ers. I think this is fueling a football team that wants to go out there and dominate teams.”

The newest Lone Wolves podcast discusses the Lions’ victory over the Jaguars, Kerby Joseph’s development, and how the defense will fare without Alex Anzalone.

Do not miss any future podcast episodes. Make sure to subscribe to the Lone Wolves podcast, which is accessible wherever your favorite podcasts are.

Here is everything Dan Campbell said after the Detroit Lions defeated the Jacksonville Jaguars, 52-6, to improve to 9-1 this season.

Opening Statement

“Listen, really proud of the guys. Talked about when you have a group of guys that, we’ve got football players, talented football players, and they’re made of the right stuff, and then they come together, there’s a collective willpower that I think they can use together and I really felt like we pulled on each other today, and really played some of our best ball up to date. That was – satisfying always to get a win in this league, cause they’re hard to come by. But, when you feel like you play up to your potential in all areas, it’s a really good feeling. So, it was an outstanding effort by a ton of people, a ton of players, coaches did a great job of having them ready. It was. We were proud of that win last week that was hard-fought, but we also wanted to get that bad taste out of our mouth, and we did that today. So, it’s outstanding.”

On Jared Goff’s performance today, after throwing five interceptions in last week’s game: “Yeah, I mean he’s, once again, he continues to play at a high level. I mentioned this just a minute ago. There’s a ton of things I appreciate about him, but one of them is that, whatever it was or wasn’t last week – and I said this, he didn’t play a bad game. Those circumstances and what went down were just, I mean, it was bizarre. But, I know for him, it’s like, ‘Look whatever it is or isn’t, I’m going to play better.’ And, he was locked in like he’s been, and you just had that feeling, man. Offense, collectively, I just felt like we were going to be in a good place, and credit to the coaches, but those guys, they took ownership in it. And, they wanted to finish better, collectively, and finish down the field, and make plays, and be productive, be efficient, and we did that. But, (Jared) Goff, I thought Goff was outstanding, once again. And so no, I’m not surprised. That’s the type of player we have, and that’s the type of football he’s been playing, for a while now. So, he’s a stud.”

On whether the team played angrily today: “Oh, I think we really – there was so much of the focus was about we wanted to make sure we established an aggressive style. Our aggressive style of football, and we really wanted to finish, and so much of it was about – it was really the focus, above anything else, was about our effort, just finishing. I want you to be able to turn the tape on, and your teammate to watch the play that you’re doing, and say, ‘Man, that guy is finishing for me. Now, I trust that guy.’ And, that was kind of the message, ‘Man, finish for the guy next to you, and give everything you’ve got.’ If we can all look at each other tomorrow, in the eyes, and say, ‘I gave you what I had,’ that’s always going to be a good thing. And, they did that.”

On how he decides when to take key players out of the game when winning by a wide margin: “There’s nothing easy about it. This is a weird – this is another one of those bizarre things that you’re running into. Normally, this doesn’t happen. It’s just like the third time this has come up this season, which, it’s a good problem to have. There’s a number of things, and I think you want to know that you finish on a good note, you found a rhythm, you keep the rhythm, ‘OK, now the time says, let’s get them out.’ What’s hard is, you’re playing pretty good, and then you take this dip, and then it starts to taste bad, ‘OK, now we pull them out, because we don’t want to get anybody hurt, and then does that bleed into the next week?’ So, some of those come in, and I think you’ve just got to feel it out. That last one, I told those guys, after the last touchdown we had, I don’t know what it was, 13 minutes left, ‘Let’s get them out.’ We played pretty good, we finished on a high note. Touchdown, defensively we got a stop, and we started pulling guys. You’ve got to make the most of it. There again, I mean, even at the end, OK, you pull (Amon-Ra) St. Brown out, we started to lose –  (Allen Robinson) ‘A-Rob’ gets hurt, but he’s back. We didn’t want to use Brock (Wright), well we had to use Brock again. And so, you start playing this, this is, you just, you’ve got to do what you’ve got to do to finish the game out, and you can only worry so much about it. And even there, it’s like, you’d love to get (Penei) Sewell out, but we only have three linemen at the game, and reserves, and you take out your oldest guys, your most veteran guys, or the guys who maybe are dinged up a little bit. You do the best you can with it.”