Detroit Lions head coach Dan Campbell spoke to the media Monday a day after his team’s heartbreaking 34-31 loss to the San Francisco 49ers in the NFC Championship Game.
Campbell said he was proud of the way his football team took a big step forward this year and knows falling one game short of the Super Bowl has opened his team’s eyes and should be a motivator to come back stronger in 2024. Here are all the key questions from Campbell’s last presser of the season:
Just about everything, according to Campbell. After building a 17-point halftime lead the Lions gave up 27 unanswered at one point in the second half. Campbell said to lose a lead like that there needs to be about 12 things that go wrong in the second 30 minutes of that football game.
“This is what you hear about all the time – catastrophes,” he said. “We did all 12 of those wrong in all three phases.”
Detroit’s been so good all year as three units able to make up for the other’s deficiencies, but Sunday in the second half it was all three phases playing poorly together.
It’s something that hasn’t happened a lot this season, and to do it against an experienced opponent like the 49ers is the reason Lions players were cleaning out their lockers Monday. Campbell said one thing his players will learn from Sunday is that every play is so critical throughout the course of a football game, and you never know when it’s going to make the difference in the game.
Next time they find themselves in that moment he thinks they’ll be able to dig themselves out having gone through this. Now that general manager Brad Holmes and Campbell have formed the core of this team, what’s next? Campbell said attracting talent and increasing competition are still important.
That will never change for them, but he also talked about continuing to add like-minded people to their core. “The key was to create a core with certain standards,” he said. “Obviously they have to be good players and we have that, but they have to behave in a certain way.
There has to be a certain mindset and certain identity and we have that in our core, and we have to add pieces that are likeminded.”
Campbell said there’s no level of talent worth bringing in that isn’t about what he and the locker room are about.
He said they have to start over in the spring and have the same urgency they did this season and can’t let complacency set in because they made the NFC Championship, or they’ll become just an average football team.
* NOTEBOOK: Campbell talks fourth-down attempts, loss to 49ers
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* RECAP: Lions at 49ers
What is the plan at offensive coordinator if Ben Johnson leaves for one of the two remaining open heading coaching spots in Washington or Seattle? Johnson is certainly worthy of a head coaching job after the heights he’s taken Detroit’s offense to over the last two seasons.
“He’s a critical piece for us,” Campbell said. Campbell also said he’s not worried yet. He joked that he needed at least two hours of sleep and a full day of exit interviews and end-of-season work after returning to Detroit from San Francisco early Monday morning.
“Then we will begin, but we will not rush,” he said. “I promise, I’m not in such a hurry. “I will check if it is correct,” he said.
How will the Lions maintain this level of success going forward? “Consistency,” Campbell said. Stay true to what you believe, get physical, and when it comes time to start over, start over.
I thought an interesting answer to this question was Campbell’s statement that coaches can’t get too attached to a player because of the success they’ve had with him in the past.
He said this is a difficult task and that sometimes coaches need to take a step back and take their emotions out of the equation to make sure players are still efficient and capable of performing at a high level. What will Campbell remember most about this particular band? The average turnover rate on NFL rosters is around 33%, so there will likely be changes to this coaching staff as well. “How resilient they are,” he said.
“Their ability to overcome. Jump into tough environments, win big games, and don’t panic. Just to see where they really are as a group. Look at how they rely on each other, and what matters is how strong that connection is. “This is a special group.”