On the last day he’ll see most of his players in June, Detroit Lions coach Dan Campbell asked them to look ahead to another month — February — and think about what they want the season to look like when the calendar flips there.

“I think just remember, what are we playing for?” Campbell said Thursday when asked to share his message to the team before heading out for summer break. “I want just each individual, what do you want? Like what do you want out of this year? What do you want it to look like when we’re sitting here and it’s February? Where is your mind?”

For Campbell, the vision is simple and self-explanatory.

“You know what I want. I want the whole enchilada,” he said.

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And most of his players share that mindset as well.

The Lions have talked openly about the Super Bowl this spring, embracing their status as one of the league’s best teams and attacking the offseason as if it was their mission to get there.

They re-signed three of their cornerstone players (plus Campbell and general manager Brad Holmes) to long-term contract extensions. They overhauled their biggest weakness, the secondary, by adding potential starting cornerbacks by trade (Carlton Davis), free agency (Amik Robertson) and the draft (Terrion Arnold and Ennis Rakestraw Jr.) while keeping their offensive nucleus intact.

And they put a bow on what Campbell said has been “a really good spring” with a light but situationally important final practice of mandatory minicamp Thursday.

The Lions still have three more organized team activity practices scheduled next week, but those will focus on the development of young players; veterans have been excused till training camp.

“It’s been a really good spring, it really has,” Campbell said. “I’m proud of those guys but I didn’t expect anything different, either. Not from this group. This group is exactly what we expect.”

The Lions return most of the team that reached the NFC championship game last season — a core that has had to live with a 34-31 loss to the San Francisco 49ers for more than four months.

The Lions raced to a 17-point lead in that game then came undone with a slew of self-inflicted mistakes; still, they finished the year confident they could play with and beat the best teams in the NFL.

While that loss left a sour taste in the mouths of many in the organization, Campbell said it’s mostly a reminder at this point that “when you’re talking about … going to go toe to toe with a heavyweight, everything’s got to line up right and you have to play a certain way for 60 minutes and you can’t buckle under the pressure.”

“It’s a different level against a different type of opponent at that level,” he said. “We’re going to learn from that. Our guys know that, they acknowledge it. The good news is, you don’t want to come out of that game and guys feel —they’re gun-shy now, and they’re broken and they lack confidence. Our guys are — that motivates you. It makes you mad. It should make you mad. Then you have to turn that into what we talked about, the next thing, ‘What are you going to do about it?’ and, ‘What’s it going to look like?’ It’s got to be focused, and it’s got to be detailed, then you have to go back to work.”

That is why Campbell wants his team to “work backwards” this offseason, to start with the big picture in mind — Super Bowl 59 in New Orleans — and recognize the steps it takes to get there.

Lions defensive tackle Alim McNeill joked Thursday that he’s not an enchilada guy like Campbell, not after he changed his eating habits last offseason and responded with the best year of his career.

“I don’t do too much cheese and red meat right now,” McNeill said. “So I’ll probably stay away from that.”

But he has a vision in mind for February, one that comes complete with a tickertape parade and shiny Super Bowl ring — and an idea how to get there.

“A perfect season” McNeill said of his end-of-season dream. “We won the Super Bowl. We’re celebrating here in Detroit, in the city. That’s what I see when I close my eyes and when I go to work out and when I go run. When I’m at practice working on different moves. That’s what we all think about, that’s what I’m thinking about. And everybody has the same attitude here. We just want to win. Whatever we can do to win.”

Contact Dave Birkett at dbirkett@freepress.com. Follow him on X and Instagram at @davebirkett.

This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Dan Campbell wants Detroit Lions looking ahead to February