Detroit Lions coach Dan Campbell is a talented motivator, but his best trait is teaching
Something momentous happened at the Detroit Lions' facility on Tuesday.
The Lions’ celebration after winning the NFC North officially came to an abrupt end, and a new goal was created.
“At this point, now, we’re fighting for the two seed,” Lions coach Dan Campbell said Tuesday afternoon.
Boom: Just like that, Campbell changed everything.
All season long, the Lions’ goal was to win the North; and now that they’ve done it for the first time, Campbell instantly set a new goal. If the Lions finish the season with wins over the Dallas Cowboys and Minnesota Vikings, they will clinch the No. 2 seed. If they win both and San Francisco loses a game, the Lions will get the No. 1 seed.
"Look, if you’re able to get to the one (seed), so be it,” Campbell said. “But right now, what we know we can achieve on our own is the two and that’s no easy task.”
The more time I spend around Campbell, the more he seems like an onion — with all kinds of layers that you don't see until you keep peeling them back.
Campbell is honest and authentic, which goes a long way in the locker room; he’s an outstanding motivator, an outstanding communicator and he has a feel for how to construct a locker room with the right chemistry.
But more and more, I think his most outstanding trait is his ability to teach.
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The best coaches — the most successful coaches — are teachers at the core; and Campbell is teaching this entire organization how to respond to success.
"The biggest opponent, right now, for us, is really the satisfaction (and) complacency," he said. "That is what we’re going to fight from here on out and they’re going to know that."
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Campbell is teaching these Lions how to win playoff football even before it starts, laying the foundation for how these players will act and think in January:
Go into a game expecting to win, believing you can win;
Win the game;
Enjoy it briefly, create a new goal and get back to work.
"You win a big game in the playoffs, well, you don’t have time to really enjoy it,” Campbell said. “You’ve got to get ready for the next one and that’s where we’re at, so it’s a great thing. I wish we had more time to enjoy it, but we don’t and we’re off to the next one and we’ve got to want more, we’ve got to stay hungry, or we won’t be able to get the next one.”
Campbell's lessons
Campbell has taught this team to embrace the challenge, not be afraid of it.
"These are the fun ones, man," Jared Goff said Tuesday. "Late in the year, another good team, at their place, can’t draw it up much better. It’ll be fun.”
Yes, Goff sounded just like Campbell, which is all part of it.
At some point, the players start to parrot a coach. Campbell has given this team license to dream, license to speak something into existence.
Campbell has also taught this team to believe and embrace a moment, not freak out.
So, naturally, Campbell is hyped up about playing in Dallas on the day the Cowboys will honor former coach Jimmy Johnson.
"I’m a huge Jimmy Johnson fan," Campbell said. "He’s somebody that I’ve studied from afar and I’m just — I’ve always been fascinated with him. He’s a, his style, the way he coached, what he was about, the way he built that roster, the way they played, and I just, I think he’s special. I think he’s one of these rare, special coaches. And so, I just think it’s — to me, it’s like an honor that we get to go out there and — because that’s what I think of.
When Johnson was inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame, he said something profound at his induction ceremony: “When you believe it, it has something (to do with) the way you act and how you deal with people, your expectation. You put expectations on them. You treat a person as he is, he's going to stay as he is. Treat a person as if he were what he could be and should be, he'll become what he could be and should be. I didn't dream. I believed we were going to do it."
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That’s exactly how Campbell is leading the Lions.
He believes in this team and he’s teaching them the way. He treated them as a division winner — something that hadn't happened in 30 years, but he believed and made it a goal and then it happened. And now, he's changed the goals and is treating them like a team that can win in the playoffs before it even happens. He's showing them the way. He's teaching them how to win.
And the more you think about it, it all seems so dang smart.
Contact Jeff Seidel: jseidel@freepress.com. Follow him on Twitter @seideljeff.
To read his recent columns, go to freep.com/sports/jeff-seidel.
This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Dan Campbell is teaching Detroit Lions how to be winning franchise
