LIONS HEAD COACH DAN CAMPBELL QUOTE SHEET
October 14, 2025
On Lions DB Brian Branch’s suspension and what he told him on how to manage frustration going forward: “He knows. He knows that, we’ve talked about it. I saw him yesterday before all this came down. So, he understands all that. He knows he can’t react that way, and he’ll be better for this. He’ll learn from it.”
On what he tells players on how to walk the line of being aggressive in the game while managing emotions: “Our guys know that. Look, this is one instance of something that happened, and it doesn’t matter what led to it. We all know it’s no different than you driving down the road and something happens on the highway, right? You can’t take out your aggression on someone else. Can’t cross that line. Our players know that, (Lions DB) Brian (Branch) knows it. He’s fine. He’ll learn from this. He’s an outstanding young man, he really is. He’s got a big heart, and he made a mistake. He’ll learn from it.”
On if Lions DB Brian Branch addressed the team: “No, not that I know of.”
On Lions DL Alim McNeill and his progress throughout practice so far: “He looked good last week. The last two weeks he’s looked good. He’s getting more comfortable, legs are under him, he’s physically ready. And so, I think we’re all hopeful.”
On if he expects Lions DL Alim McNeill to play this week: “I’d love to believe so, I mean, I would – 58, 52, 48, 58, I don’t know. We’re getting closer, I’m starting to feel pretty good.”
On making up for losing Lions DB Brian Branch on the field this week: “He is, he’s an outstanding player for us. And so, it’s no different than when you lose guys that you really depend on and have a high production. So, the next guy’s got to step up and serve a role for us, help us out, and then it’s got to spread throughout the rest of your team, man. Everybody else has got to pull a little bit more of that load. Between the corners and the linebackers and the D-line and offense and special teams. And so, we’ve just got to help each other out. I mean (Lions S Thomas Harper) Harp went in the other day, he didn’t play a ton, but it’s what we have seen in practice. I mean, there’s some stuff in there, there’s a few things in there that are pretty encouraging. We don’t have a problem with him being in there. We’ll play with what we’ve got.”
On Lions DB Brian Branch and if he believes he has a certain level of remorse: “There again, my job is to move forward, here. I know this, we don’t have him. We don’t have him. So, I can worry about that, or I can worry about what we do have and how we adjust. And so, we’ll find out on (Lions S) Kerby (Joseph). I know we’ve got (Lions S Thomas) Harper, we’ve got (Lions S Loren) Strickland, we’ve got (Lions CB) Rock (Ya-Sin) who can play safety and corner. We can play one safety and play four linebackers for all I care. I mean, we’ll figure it out. (Lions Defensive Coordinator Kelvin Sheppard) Shepp will have a good plan, we’ll talk about what we need to do. And we’ll have a plan ready, and we’ll be ready to play Tampa Bay.”
On if he has hope in the appeal process for reversing Lions DB Brian Branch’s suspension: “Well, I’m not, just because I don’t want to think that way. If it happens, that’s a bonus. Right now, I’m assuming he’s out and he’s not going to win it.”
On how the team plans to prepare for Buccaneers QB Baker Mayfield: “They’re playing hot football, it’s a very good team. Baker is – you guys know I’ve got a lot of respect for Baker Mayfield. The way he plays, his leadership, his ability to push the ball down the field, make plays with his legs. I just think he’s playing at a high level. So, he’s a guy that gives them a chance anytime they’re in a game. They play really good defense, they’ve got a good O-line. Those guys, man, they play hard, they’re physical, they’re tough, they have a run game, and they’ve got a good teams unit. So, this is a good team. This is a really good team.”
On bouncing back after a loss and taking their mistakes and applying them going forward: “Well, you don’t ever want things to happen. Nobody wants to lose, we certainly don’t want to lose. But it puts a little extra sense of urgency on you, it puts a little bit of that bad taste. It sometimes gives you that extra kick to get things back to where they need to be. Maybe you didn’t quite see it, or maybe it’s – look, the other thing is that’s a really good team, man. You’ve got to be on point when you play really good teams. And that’s what I love about this stretch that’s coming is we’re about to hit a row of them, right? A whole ton of them, and your margin for error is so small. I mean, that’s what I told the team today. That actually fires me up, because you do, you have to be on point. You don’t get the luxury of making a mistake here, make a mistake there against these types of teams we’re getting ready to play. When you don’t, and you do all the little things right, you learn another way to win, you start getting better. And this is the stuff that really gets you to where you want to be by the end of the year. So, it’s exactly what we need. It’s going to be outstanding competition. We’ll be better for it, we will, in the long run.”
On the process of determining if Lions S Kerby Joseph is ready to play during the tough schedule stretch: “It’ll be the same. I would say it’s very much the same. If it’s something that we feel like, ‘First of all, he can’t produce.’ I mean, that’ll always go that way, ‘How much worse are you making this injury? Is it going to make it significantly worse? You’re not going to have him by the end of the year, OK well that doesn’t make sense. Alright well, what if it’s, you may not make it worse, but just being a little bit better is going to help his production go way up. The production is not there, right? He’s not, A, maybe he can’t finish the game. B, the guy behind him would be better off playing. So, you have to weigh every one of those. And so, we’ll do that with Kerby. We’ll reassess here. We saw the game the other day. He tried to gut through it, played most of the game. Look, it wasn’t his best performance, but he’d tell you that, too. He was giving us what he had, and so we’ll have to reassess.”
On if there was miscommunication behind the illegal trick play-call and if at any point he was given direction from the officials that it was an illegal play: “I don’t even want to talk about it. I don’t, and I’m sorry. It’s a real sore spot. I told the team, man, I take full responsibility for that. I do. Players did exactly what we told them to do, (Lions QB Jared) Goff did exactly what we told him to do (Lions RB) David (Montgomery) did, and I will take that. You’ve got to make it very clear on where you are, and I did not do that. And I told them I take responsibility for that.”
On if he has thoughts about the penalty differential during Sunday’s game: “I don’t. I don’t.”
On if he has a different perspective on anything from Sunday’s game after watching the film: “I mean, it’s what we – we fought, man. Fought our tails – we had some guys who played really, really good. Really good man. (Lions DL) DJ Reader played his tail off that whole game, start to finish. Even there on that last drive, I was really impressed. We had a lot of guys that played really good football that had one bad play, one or two bad plays. We just kind of took turns as to when those popped up, and that hurt a little bit. But I mentioned it. Once you get in that type of game, it’s more when those pop up, the timing of them, being able to overcome one with another unit or another player. We just were a little out of sync. We’ll be all good.”
On if he worries about Lions RB David Montgomery not getting as much playtime as Lions RB Jahmyr Gibbs: “Well, I think that’s something that I always try to look at. We certainly don’t want him – either one of them getting too much. But I know that it’s a little more tilted towards Jah right now. And a lot of that comes in the two-minute reps that we get. Now the other day we only had six of them, but a lot of times that’s where that goes because he’s normally in on that and that can skew it. But I don’t feel like we’ve gotten Jah too much in a game yet necessarily. I think he like 36 or 37 snaps the other night. And so, I feel pretty good. But as far as balancing them out, I would like to balance them out. I would. I would like to give David some more. Find a place to get him a few more. And we were hoping we were going to be able to do that in the second half some more the other day, and it’s just kind of the way where the game went. We didn’t convert on a couple of those series. We get in fourth-and-10s, and that took away some of the runs and play-passes, and then we were in a different type of game at that point.”
On the timeline of Lions CB Terrion Arnold and Lions DB Avonte Maddox returning: “I think they’re both probably after the bye. I do.”
On if Lions EDGE Marcus Davenport will be ready to come off Reserve/Injured this week and his timeline to return: “I don’t see that, not yet. He’s doing well, he’s getting better. We like where all those guys are at. I mean, we’re going to be looking pretty good at the end of November, December which is awesome. But I don’t see him being ready before the bye for sure.”
On how close Lions LB Malcolm Rodriguez is to returning: “We’re hoping after the bye we can start rolling him out there a little bit, get him going.”
