LIONS HEAD COACH DAN CAMPBELL QUOTE SHEET
December 12, 2022
Opening Statement: “Really nothing new to speak on than what we talked about yesterday. I would say this, I am going to open with this because I think this is important. We’re playing better for a number of reasons, and certainly, the growth has a lot to do with that, but I certainly don’t ever want anyone to understand or not to understand that part of all of that, probably the biggest part of that are guys like (Lions T Taylor) Decker and (Lions C Frank) Ragnow, (Lions LB Jarrad Davis) JD being back, (Lions FB Jason) Cabinda, some of these guys that have been here, (Lions S) C.J. Moore, (Lions DL) Romeo (Okwara). They’ve kind of been through a number of things, but man, they’ve been steady rocks. I mean, Frank plays with stuff every week, man, and guts it out. And sometimes you lose sight of them because you don’t want to ever take them for granted, but they play at such a high level week in and week out, but they’re a huge part of our success, even (Lions DL Michael) Brockers. Even though he hasn’t been activated, he’s a huge part. He’s helped develop those young guys in that D-line room, so I just don’t ever want that to be lost. Those guys are damn good players for us, but they’ve been outstanding in the locker room. They’re great leaders, and they’re workers, and they set the tone for everybody, and those young bucks just fall right in line. So, we’ve got a number of those guys. I talked about yesterday, everything. I thought the big play was the sack fumble before half by (Lions DL Isaiah) Buggs, and then (Lions S) Kerby (Joseph) picking it up, that was huge. We should have gotten some points out of it, didn’t work out but we did keep them from getting points, and then to come out in the third quarter, defense gets a three-and-out, offense, we stall out, but yet, C.J Moore, that punt team did a hell of a job to get it back, and that ends up being a six-and-a-half-minute drive that – or seven-minute drive that we scored a touchdown on. (Lions QB Jared) Goff did a hell of a job in there. It was big, and then fourth quarter, we just kind of took control of the game. We were able to possess the ball, come away with the points. When they were able to score a touchdown, we scored a touchdown. They get a field goal, we got a field goal, but we possessed it longer too, and we were able to close it out. Defensively came up big, obviously in the red zone limited points and one of our goals was to shut down (Vikings RB Dalvin) Cook. We know how dynamic of a runner he is, but 15 carries, 23 yards, one-and-a-half-yard average, that’s about as good as you’re going to do against a guy like that. I mean you’d be lucky to do that against him, so our defense really stepped up. It wasn’t perfect, but made plays to get back the offense, so all three units did a hell of a job.”
On the team’s ability to overcome different situations and challenges such as playing on the road or with a deficit: “I just think everything that we’ve talked about, the things we do in practice, the things we’ve been preaching for weeks, and you just stay the course. And I think you learn, and it’s important. I’ve said it before, but you – when it doesn’t your way, if you don’t learn from it, that’s the problem. But if you’re able to continue to learn from your errors, your mistakes, things you can get better at, then you’ll always grow, and we’ve been able to do that. We’ve been better every week.”
On where the team needs to improve in order to sustain a potential playoff push: “Well first of all, we’ve got to get better in our run game. We have to have better run efficiency on offense. That’s a definite. It doesn’t mean we have to run the ball more, it means we need to be much more efficient, and we can be those with guys we’ve got upfront, our tight ends, our backs, everything. Shoot, our receivers, everybody’s got a hand in the run efficiency. We’ve got to be better, we haven’t been as good. Now, (Lions QB Jared) Goff and those receivers and our pass pro’s been outstanding. We’ve been able to – you want to try to take the run away a little bit, we’ve been able to answer that in the pass attack, but yet you still need to be able to have efficient runs. And we’ve got to be better, we can be better. Defensively, there again, getting takeaways has been good for us, and it’s got to continue to stay that way. There again, I think just being efficient on first and second down because we’re pretty good if we can get them in third-and-long. You get in third-and-7-plus, third-and-6-plus, we’ve been pretty good in that range, and certainly, I think that’s a key. We’ve got to get off the field. We get teams in that type of situation, we have to close them out. We can’t let them continue to get a first down and extend the drive, so I think those are – those are two of the big things there, and we’ve been pretty consistent on special teams. I still feel like we got a lot of yards out there in returns that we can still get. I mean (Lions WR Kalif Raymond) Leaf’s doing a hell of a job. I mean he’s giving us something every week. There’s a couple of times when, we could just hold on a block just a little bit longer, I mean we’re talking about these things are touchdowns. These aren’t just big returns, they could be touchdowns, so I think that’s the big thing. But ultimately, if we just will hold onto the football, we don’t turn the ball over, and we continue to play pretty solid special teams, we’ve got a chance.”
On what the team can do to refocus after an emotional win coming up on another big game: “Yeah, you hit it head on. You tell the team exactly that that’s an error that has come before with some teams when these things happen, and you just tell them exactly how you feel. ‘This is the deal, this is what can happen if we allow it. Are we going to allow it or not?’ And then they make up their mind, they’re pretty good about that. They’re grown men, and they understand, and we’ll make sure they understand, so we’re in a good spot right now. They’ve continued to look right in front of them. Listen, we’ve got enough smart guys. They understand what’s right in front of us, and that’s New York Jets, who is a very tough, physical team, and they’re very much in the race. And you’re crazy if you don’t think they want it. They’ll be coming with everything they’ve got against us, and so this is going to be one of those, man. We’ve got to be locked and loaded and ready to go. I mean this will be a physical game.”
On his level of confidence in Lions QB Jared Goff leading the offense and if it has grown: “Well yeah, I would say it’s grown as the season’s gone, and I would just say I had a lot of confidence in his ability to move the football and to get us in the right place and to be efficient. But there were things early where we were really trying to – man, we’re trying to outscore – we’re trying to push the ball where there would be times where a little bit – you’re holding your breath just – you get the risk, but man, careful with it. And it bit us a little bit and for any quarterback that’s a hard spot to be in because you don’t want them to do it, but yet you know you need to score. That’s kind of where we were at, and I don’t feel that way. I’ve lost that feeling, it’s been a long time, man, I have complete faith in the guy. He’s done an unbelievable job just getting us in the right play. Decision-making, his ball accuracy, he made about three or four throws yesterday with pressure right in his face. We kind of got beat a couple of times inside quickly and he stood right in there and just made throws that were on the money and that’s – listen, that’s a credit to him. They’re blocking well upfront, but the couple of times where it did kind of come through, man he has really – he’s made a conscious effort to sit in here. He trusts those guys, and man the follow-through, make the throws, so I have the utmost faith in the guy right now.”
On the strongest attribute Lions QB Jared Goff has that has gotten him through criticism throughout his career: “Well, his ability to bounce back. His ability to rise to the occasion to – man, when it does look like it’s at its worse, man, he can – he can block everything out and he can refocus and say, ‘You know what? There’s all these things and all this noise that on the outside,’ and for me to – for us to just say and for him to identify, ‘Just do this better. Just worry about this.’ And for him to just hone in on that and really work on it, and then, you see that he’s able to get better from it, I think that’s big. And some of those moments that he’s had where his back was against the wall, I think he’s come out and really played some of his best football. And so, I think that speaks to his character. He is a resilient person because he has, he’s had to overcome a lot. And I think he’s in a great place right now, he’s earned that.”
On what it means for the veterans who have been here the longest to see success: “Yeah, and look I could go down the other – some of the guys we’ve brought in. I mean, I talked about (Lions DL Michael) Brockers, but (Lions LB) Alex (Anzalone) certainly, I mean he’s been a big part of who we are, (Lions RB) Jamaal Williams. But yeah, the guys that – that’s who I think and honestly, probably – I know they’re all kind of similar, but (Lions T Taylor) Decker’s one of the guys I think about because he really is. He’s the player who’s been around here the longest and he saw some earlier success and then it – there were some rough times and now to be able to just kind of have some hope back. That’s probably the best way to say it. I know he’s having fun, but he’s very much invested in this team, man. He’s all in. But that’s one of the guys you want to win for. I mean, you want to help him get there. Well, we appreciate it, man. He’s putting in the work, he’s all in and he’s a true pro.”
On if this young Lions team reminds him of any teams he coached with the Saints: “I would say, there was a lot of things – I don’t want to dive too far into it. But I would say ’17 reminds me – there are similarities. We had a very young crop of pretty good players, and we had some very good veteran players. And so, there’s some things about it and we were a little bit – nobody knew what we were going to be able to do, but we could battle it out. We were a tough team, we were physical and we could kind of compete in a number of different ways. So, to me there are some similarities, but listen, I like where we’re at. Our guys continue to battle, but we’ve got four tough ones ahead of us. There are no – you could – did you see what Jacksonville? I mean, listen man there’s dangerous teams in this League and every week you never know what can happen. And shoot, you’ve got to prepare to win, you’ve got to have a dang good game plan, your guys’ got to believe in it. They’ve got to work at it, and they’ve got to trust in it. And then, man, you’ve got to have things go your way too. So, we’re in a good spot right now, we’ve got a tough opponent and it’s on to the next one.”
On how Lions CB Jeff Okudah is feeling and how he fought through illness yesterday: “Yeah, listen it was a heck of a job by him just trying to gut it out. I mean, yeah, he didn’t have a ton of energy coming off of what he did, but he went out there and tried to compete.”
On Lions CB Jeff Okudah’s fourth-and-1 run stop in the game yesterday against the Vikings: “It was a huge stop. It was a huge stop. I mean that was an unbelievable play. Fourth-and-1 for him to get in there and make it – really, he played off of (Lions DL John) Cominsky, and so it was just two-fold for him to play off of that, what Cominsky was doing and then him to create the stop. It was huge. So, that was big. But yeah, he was obviously – he didn’t quite have all the energy coming off of it. But we anticipate him obviously feeling better and being ready to go.” |
