Lions head coach Dan Campbell was not a happy man after his team fell to 0-6 in a listless loss to the visiting Cincinnati Bengals on Sunday. The angry tone in his postgame press conference — anger at his own coaching, his player’s performance and at being the league’s last winless team — faded into more focused intensity on Monday.
“It takes a minute to step away from it and, you know, just calm down, don’t let your emotions play into it as you grade the tape,” Campbell said Monday. “It takes me a minute, and then look at it with open eyes, somewhat of a clean slate, and take it for what it is, and not let your emotions overcome you. So that’s what I did.”
One of the things Campbell mentioned was not just repeating the same process that has not worked. Without giving specific details, Campbell promised changes to the status quo.
“There are a couple things. I would say all of the above. I don’t want to get too far into where that’ll go, as far as the roster, but we’re looking at that, Campbell told reporters. “I think we’re going to shake things up here a little bit.”
Don’t expect any of those changes to involve benching quarterback Jared Goff, certainly not in the week of his “revenge” game against his former team. One hopeful change would be the return of left tackle Taylor Decker from injured reserve, which would solidify the banged-up offensive line. Increasing the reps for rookie defenders Derrick Barnes and Levi Onwuzurike could also be in order.
