BEARS win
BEARS 27-11 Seahawks
#BearDown
This years hard knocks is box office. This whole sequence is gold. Basically calling out all other Linebackers with a young rookie who is out performing them all.
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Matt Corral out for the season
Duce Staley is a man you would run through a wall for
Hutchinson’s mom though 
Brady could well stay retired, starting left guard has joined the centre out for the season with a torn acl & mcl. He will be killed behind a makeshift O line.
Michael Thomas is dealing with “a little bit of a hamstring issue”, so that’s the 2022 season done
That was a fairly sickening looking cut block Kayvon Thibadeaux was on the receiving end
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Pure filth from Randy Moss’s son, no need of it
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Lions coach Dan Campbell, ‘Hard Knocks’ star, is confident and (mostly) composed
Aug 23, 2022
ALLEN PARK, Mich. — Dan Campbell wasn’t one of those tight ends who made plays that looked like something out of Swan Lake. Campbell earned his keep by putting his face mask square in the center of an opponent’s chest and driving his legs with every bit of force and will he could summon. His philosophy was born during Texas two-a-days and grew up on fourth-and-1s on muddy, half-frozen NFL fields with seasons on the line.
He played 11 seasons in the league with the help of a dozen surgeries (one Lisfranc, one elbow, one sports hernia, two shoulders, three triceps and four knees). That was after two surgeries in college at Texas A&M (fibula and sports hernia). Since he retired, he’s had another (knee replacement).
So he knew what he wanted the Lions’ culture to look like. Because he lived it.
When he was introduced as Detroit’s head coach in January 2021, Campbell described the kind of team he wanted to lead.
“We’re going to kick you in the teeth,” he said. “And when you punch us back, we’re going to smile at you. And when you knock us down, we’re going to get up. And on the way up, we’re going to bite a kneecap off. … It’s going to take two more shots to knock us down. And on the way up, we’re going to take your other kneecap.”
In the first episode of the latest season of “Hard Knocks,” Campbell pointed to a word on the wall that he called his “core foundation”: grit.
“We’ll go a little bit longer, we’ll push a little harder, and we’ll think a little deeper and a little sharper,” he said, defining the term to his team as cameras rolled. “To me, it means we’ll play anywhere. We’ll play on grass, we’ll play on turf, we’ll go to a f—— landfill. It doesn’t matter. Doesn’t matter if you have one a– cheek and three toes, I will beat your a–.”
Why did HBO want the Lions for “Hard Knocks”? HBO relies on star power, and the same network that gave us James Gandolfini as Tony Soprano and Peter Dinklage as Lord Tyrion Lannister is now serving up Dan Campbell as himself.
But it’s not the same Dan Campbell who wanted to bite your kneecaps. This Dan Campbell is cultivated, confident and composed.
Some of the Lions’ midweek coaching meetings last season began at 9 p.m. Many of the coaches showed up with heavy lids and drooping heads. And then Campbell stepped to the front of the room, talking quickly and emphatically while moving like he was playing a fast-paced virtual reality game, his ideas bouncing off the walls, ceiling, and floor.
“Everyone,” Lions offensive coordinator Ben Johnson says, “perked up in their seats.”
Campbell’s energy is legendary.
“You can laugh hysterically or get to the point where you say, ‘Stop, just stop talking,'” says Holly, his wife of 23 years.
Campbell enjoys baking, though it seems it’s become more obsession than amusement. He went through dozens of variations of oatmeal chocolate chip cookie recipes until he found the right one. Now he’s trying to make the perfect flour tortilla — he says use lard, not shortening.
He famously says good morning with a Venti Starbucks coffee with two shots of espresso, followed by another, for a total of 820 milligrams of caffeine (one cup of coffee has 95 mg). The Copenhagen long cut he buys from 7-Eleven down the street — the owner started carrying it expressly for him — adds to the buzz.
“My coffee and my tobacco, I want to taste it,” he says. “No cream or sugar, and I don’t want wintergreen. Straight up.”
He gets his sugar later at night when he crushes two or three pints of Talenti Gelato — salted caramel truffle is his favorite — while watching game tape or Netflix. He shares with Thelma and Louise, the Campbells’ Teacup Yorkies, and Bird, their Catahoula leopard dog, so he isn’t consuming all 960 calories himself.
Even when he closes his eyes, his body keeps revving, which is why he sets the thermostat in the blue-lips range. Holly wears sweats to bed year-round. “His comfort level is meat locker,” she says. “He’d run all the fans and open the windows in the winter if I let him.”
“I sweat,” he says. “I burn hot.”
In Campbell’s first season as head coach, there were many days when his to-do list would not shorten no matter how long he worked. “It would drive me crazy,” he says. He would find himself jammed up by one item with no solution in sight, but he wouldn’t table it. The sun would set, the date would change and still he would be hammering away. Campbell often settled for just three or four hours of sleep, and he usually stayed in his office three nights a week.
Entering Year 2, he has figured out his most efficient approach is to give in to weariness.
“When you haven’t had enough sleep, you’re wasting your time,” he says. “There are things I could sit there and look at for hours. I go to bed, then look at it the next day and I got it in five minutes.”
From now on, the 46-year-old plans to sleep at home.
Dan Campbell with Louise, one of his two Teacup Yorkies. (Courtesy of the Campbell family)
As Campbell did 40 up-downs with his team on the first day of camp, the tape on his left wrist caught the attention of his players. From somewhere in the back, one player took his shot. “Hey, what happened to DC — injured already?”
Laughs. Others chimed in.
Campbell chuckled to himself. He had a secret.
A year ago, on the night before camp began, Lions defensive coordinator Aaron Glenn announced to his players that they would start practice with 40 up-downs. Campbell figured he should be a part of it. He hadn’t prepared, though, and his subsequent up-downs were a little sloppy.
This year, knowing they were coming, Campbell trained. He was ready. Then two days before camp began, he tried to step over a dog gate while carrying his work bag, mail and a tumbler. His foot caught. Thelma and Louise were at his feet.
Nine years ago, he agreed to take in “those two clowns” to appease Holly. As a boy, Campbell was a ranch hand on the family farm in rural Texas, so he was more comfortable wrestling steer than nuzzling with five-pound designer dogs. When Thelma and Louise were pups, he had no use for them. Now, one or the other sleeps nestled in his armpit. Both accompany him on his daily Starbucks run.
The dogs scampered to safety as the 6-foot-5, 260-pound Campbell came down, but he “just ate it.” The gate exploded, wood flying everywhere. He landed on his left arm, his wrist took the worst of it.
Which explained the tape.
“I knew I couldn’t go out there without doing the up-downs,” he says. “There was nowhere to hide, so I wrapped it.”
The low point last season came in a 44-6 beatdown from the Eagles in Detroit that left the Lions 0-8. Campbell’s team was starting to look like Matt Patricia’s team, Jim Schwartz’s team, Rod Marinelli’s team, Steve Mariucci’s team, Marty Mornhinweg’s team, Wayne Fontes’ team, Darryl Rogers’ team, Monte Clark’s team.
They were starting to look like what Michiganders call “SOL”: Same Old Lions.
But during the bye week after the loss to the Eagles, Campbell took over offensive play calling, Glenn tweaked his scheme, left tackle Taylor Decker came back from injury and the team picked up wide receiver Josh Reynolds — whom Campbell has nicknamed “The Preying Mantis” and “The Spider of Death” this summer — off waivers from the Titans. All of it helped.
In their first game after the bye, the Lions tied the Steelers. And from then on, Campbell saw weekly improvement, even if it didn’t always result in victories. Johnson, then the tight ends coach, says he had never been on a team that practiced as hard in December. Detroit won three of its last six, leading the NFL in resilience.
According to safety Tracy Walker, Campbell made 3-13-1 feel like 16-0.
“He always believed in his players, regardless of what we were going through,” Walker says. “Every game, we went in with the mindset that we could beat anybody. Regardless of the team we’re playing, they have to block the gates. We in there with them.”
Campbell and his culture won over a locker room in a season when many coaches would have lost it by focusing on improving one thing at a time.
“Attack this rep, attack this period, attack the way you are in the meeting room,” he says. “Attack today.”
But Campbell still gets a faraway look in his eyes when he thinks about some of the losses, especially when he recollects his roles in them.
He remembers not closing out the game against the Ravens before Justin Tucker nailed a 66-yard field goal as time ran out. There was his game management at the end of the first half against the Eagles and at the end of the game against the Bears on Thanksgiving. A decision to go for two backfired in a 19-17 loss at Minnesota — Campbell choked up at his postgame news conference. In one that got away against the Browns, he tried a pair of late field goals when a touchdown could have won the game.
“Those things haunt me,” he says. “Our players are giving it everything they got. You feel like you let them down. That’s unacceptable and not fair to them. I feel that’s on me.”
He has taken steps to ensure he won’t be similarly haunted this season. Last year, the Lions didn’t start preparing for end-of-half/end-of-game situations until well into training camp, like most teams. This year, Detroit began emphasizing those situations in OTAs. Every spring practice concluded with a critical situation drill, and the team resumed practicing those situations at the beginning of training camp.
“We are leaving no stone unturned when it comes to possible situations that could happen to us during a game,” Lions center Frank Ragnow says.
For instance, in the early days of camp, they practiced the possibility of having a false start on the offense with 12 seconds remaining, a 5-yard penalty that would include a 10-second runoff. Quarterback Jared Goff would have two seconds on a running clock as soon as the ball is placed, so a teammate has to be responsible for “umpire alert.”
Campbell believes making smart decisions as the clock nears zero can be the difference in games.
“The game management part of it, he has taken enormous strides there,” Johnson says. “He’s thinking about the answers before he gets to the test.”
Dan Campbell is more prepared for end-of-game situations this year after some decisions haunted him last season. (Jason Getz / USA Today)
Losing eight straight games, as the Lions did at the start of 2021, is a heavy burden for a coach.
With heavy burdens, some crack under pressure. Some question themselves and change their approach. Some point fingers. Campbell pressed his palms together.
Campbell’s grandmother Marie was his Sunday school teacher. His parents exposed him to Catholic, Methodist and Baptist religions.
“When you start feeling the heat, (God) tells us to give it to him,” he says. “When you give it to him, I feel it takes the load off me. When I try to do things myself — trying to solve the problem, trying to get these answers — that’s when it gets worse. When I finally put it in his hands, it clears everything up.”
Campbell acknowledges he is a work in progress. He knows he should clean up his language. But the first thing he does in the morning is open his Bible or a devotional his mother gave him. “It centers me,” he says.
He is tempted, of course. Micromanaging is to new head coaches as the apple was to Adam, and Campbell admits he took a bite last year. He didn’t trust his offensive staff and double-checked everything they did. If a problem arose, he tried to fix it himself.
“There were things in the offense I wanted to be implemented,” he says. “And then I felt I needed to coach it up or be a part of it because I knew the way it needed to be run.”
First-time offensive coordinator Anthony Lynn and Goff were not in sync from the beginning. Mark Brunell was an NFL quarterbacks coach for the first time. Antwaan Randle El was a rookie wide receivers coach.
When Campbell took over play calling from Lynn, he gave more responsibilities to Johnson, and when Lynn was let go in the offseason, Campbell promoted Johnson to coordinator. Johnson, whom Campbell worked with for four years in Miami and has called a “rock star,” now has control.
“He has put 100 percent of his trust and confidence in me from the moment he made me the coordinator this year,” Johnson says. “He is very much involved, but at the same time he has let me install, run meetings, coordinate the staff, do the schedules and scripting … it has been the whole nine.”
Campbell has yet to commit to Johnson calling plays — it’s trending that way — but backing away from the offense has enabled Campbell to have a wide-angle lens view of his team while splitting his time between offense, defense and special teams. He’s trying to delegate more to all his assistants, who have a combined 83 years of NFL playing experience.
He acknowledges his coaches are a lot like him, but “they are not identical to me,” he says. “Because if they were, there would be holes all over these walls.”
Campbell is a born leader. He’s a refined leader, too, one who seeks to embolden others to lead.
“I have a ton of faith and trust in these guys,” Campbell says. “I really believe I have a superstar coaching staff from top to bottom. Let it go. Let them take the reins because they are damn good coaches. It’s helped and certainly has taken a load off me.”
Campbell also tries to empower players.
After the Lions took a 7-0 lead on the Rams last season, he asked Walker if he thought he could recover a surprise onside kick. Walker said he could, and he did. Early in the offseason, Campbell asked Ragnow what he thought about running full-speed team reps in the third phase of OTAs. Ragnow agreed it would be a good idea, so the Lions had full-speed team reps.
But every so often, Campbell makes an executive decision without input.
One day early in training camp, Campbell told his players they were going live, which isn’t always well-received. Afterward, he explained why in a passionate, emotional speech captured by “Hard Knocks” cameras.
“The studies say you’ve got to get volume and you’ve got to get intensity before a season comes,” Campbell said. “If you don’t, I’m not getting you prepared, not only physically, for injury but also for us as a team to get better.
“I’ve got a plan,” he continued. “I swear to you. All I think about is you guys. That’s all I’ve been thinking about, man. That’s all I f—— think about is you guys and how I set you up for … the best possible chance I can give you to have a season. I swear to you, man. I just ask you to trust me, that’s all, please.”
And they do.
“He gets it,” Ragnow says. “He’s been through it. He understands he can’t be the feel-good players’ coach who makes everybody happy. He knows when to lay down the law, and he’s got this uncanny ability to get us to trust him.”
Most NFL coaches learn to be as strategic with their words as they are their game plans. The truth to them is moldable, like hot glass; they blow it and spin it until it comes out just how they want it, shapely and pretty.
Campbell is not very good at this. He’s a little reminiscent of early ’80s Mike Ditka, except with smoother edges. When Campbell gives a speech to his players, there are no notes. He talks from the heart, which is pretty much how he does everything.
“I’m gonna be me,” he says. “I’m gonna speak my mind. It was the way I was raised, and it’s the way I am.”
Cody, Piper, Dan and Holly Campbell. (Courtesy of the Campbell family)
Campbell is one of the primary reasons Walker re-signed with the Lions in the offseason. “Best coach I ever had,” he says. “I love Dan.”
It is not an uncommon sentiment in the Lions locker room — and outside it. “I feel like all of America is rooting for Dan Campbell and the Detroit Lions,” former player and current analyst Shaun O’Hara said on NFL Network.
Local reporters respect him for his honesty and humanity. The workers at Lions headquarters who have nothing to do with football relish hellos in the hallway. Children connect with him. If he’s at a party with families, he sits at the kids’ table, plays games and gets loud. Animals are drawn to him. He is the guy who throws a tennis ball to a neighbor’s dog until the dog gives up.
Campbell went to the hardware store not long ago for an air filter — he’s semi-obsessed with air filters — and didn’t return for two and a half hours. Seems his shopping trip turned into an autograph session in the parking lot.
“I’ve always told him he’s magic,” Holly says. “He’s like the pied piper.”
The only thing more popular than Campbell at Lions training camp are the free cups of frozen custard compliments of Shake Shack. You will find Campbell No. 89 jerseys in the stands at practices with Sanders 20s, Johnson 81s and Hutchinson 97s. No other head coach has a jersey for sale on NFL.com.
Campbell played in Detroit for three years. He, Holly and their children — Cody, 23, and Piper, 16 — felt at home there. When the Lions’ head coaching job opened in 2018, he hoped for an interview that never came. “You kind of go through that feeling that the one job I really wanted is the one I’m never going to get,” Holly says.
But in 2021, destiny called him back. Detroit embraced Campbell. He embraced back, and now, somehow, even after a 3-13-1 debut, there is even more embracing.
A certain Lions offensive lineman is known for provoking defensive teammates by not always hearing the whistle at the end of a practice play. A defensive teammate recently acted to improve the blocker’s hearing with an uppercut to the offensive lineman’s groin. The next day, Campbell cracked up the team by showing them a clip of the incident. And his narration was typically hilarious.
He is at least as good at busting chops as he is baking oatmeal chocolate chip cookies — ask any of his players who have posted something questionable on TikTok or Instagram. They give it back to him, too, accusing him of thinking he still can play or asking him about the veins popping from his arms and neck.
When Campbell smiles, it’s not the reserved, don’t-show-them-how-you-really-feel smile of a typical head coach. He smiles with his whole face. He sounds and looks a little like Jeff Bridges’ “The Dude” character from “The Big Lebowski.”
All this feeds his image as a “meathead,” to use his word.
At this, Campbell winks.
Last year, he signed off on the team website photoshopping his office nameplate so it read “DAN CAMPBELL HEAD COACH/THE DUDE.” His wife wears a T-shirt that reads, “Dumb Jocks Are Hot.” She has another that says, “Mrs. Meathead.”
He is reputed to be a “rah-rah” guy in an era when everyone wants strategists, but the reality is many people who have worked with Campbell have been impressed by his deep understanding of football. Before Brunell was a professional coach, he visited the Dolphins during OTAs and sat in on meetings. The assistant coach on the staff who impressed him most in terms of his scheme understanding and attention to detail was Campbell.
Campbell doesn’t do image control.
“It doesn’t bother me,” he says. “If you’re an opponent, the dumber you think I am, the better off we are.”
One of Campbell’s goals when he took the Lions job was modest: he wanted to contain himself. It has taken a while, but he says he’s doing it now.
Kind of.
“I’m still being me, excited as ever,” he says. “But I don’t always feel like I’m going to rip my shirt off and run around. Once you’re in it a year, you have a feel for what it is. You can keep your emotions in check.”
It’s the new Dan Campbell, same old Dan Campbell, always Dan Campbell.
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McCourt, who moved with his family to Florida at the age of eight, now has the opportunity to capitalise on being the sole player in his position on the Jaguars roster after Ryan Santoso was cut by the AFC South outfit.
Donald is a bum.
A coward.
And a fraud.
Helluva drug
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TOUCHDOWN BEARS
TOUCHDOWN BEARS.