Dan Campbell took over as the Lions’ primary play-caller on a Sunday his team entered sitting ninth in offensive efficiency, second in points, fifth in turnovers surrendered, second in passing touchdowns and sixth in rushing yards. Only nine teams score with more regularity than the Lions, which is saying something, given that we’ve seen some extremely outsized, blowout-level offensive performances over the first half of the season that can dramatically skew that number, meaning Detroit is probably a little better than that number suggests.
Detroit is in the conversation for first place in the NFC North—tied with the Bears at 6–3 before the 5-2-1 Packers play the Eagles on Monday Night Football. And yet, Campbell didn’t dismiss what he saw as instances of possible decay, or a lack of adjustments from his offensive coordinator, John Morton. Perhaps the breaking point for him was in the macro, like the much-discussed discrepancy in targets between Jameson Williams and the rest of Detroit’s pass catchers. Maybe it was in the micro, like a week ago against the Vikings, when the Lions did little to adjust to the collapsing of the left side of their offensive line, leaving a transcendent star running back like Jahmyr Gibbs as nothing more than an MMA practice bag for an oncoming Brian Flores blitz package.
Regardless, we saw in a ruthless 44–22 Lions beatdown of the Commanders why this team has become an NFL standard, especially on offense. Certainly, that had a lot to do with having Ben Johnson on staff and getting the team’s weaponry properly assessed and placed in a scheme that perfectly suited Jared Goff, a powerful offensive line and the handful of wide receivers, tight ends and backs that were funneled into the system. But perhaps just as important is Campbell’s inclination for sniffing out when it isn’t working—he was quick to pull the trigger on his initial offensive coordinator hire, Anthony Lynn, to make room for Johnson in the first place—and his willingness to throw on his Benjamin Franklin–sized bifocals and call the offense himself.
While Washington isn’t exactly the perfect variable to test this experiment, given that the Commanders are one of the worst defenses in football and, had the franchise not been operating in a year with this iteration of the Cowboys or Bengals, would be getting far more attention for having allowed more than 400 yards in each contest for a month (and 546 to Detroit on Sunday), Campbell seems to have made his point forcefully.
He didn’t embarrass his offensive coordinator when asked about the change at halftime and barely admitted to it (though his quarterback did after the game). Within that 546 total yards for the Lions were the following facts: Detroit scored on all but its last offensive possession of the game, which ended in the victory formation. Goff wasn’t sacked and was hit just five times. Gibbs touched the ball far more than he did last week and had his second-most scrimmage yards of the season (172). Williams nearly led the Lions in targets (seven) and logged his best game of the season in terms of total yards (119). Campbell also called more driving play-action shots that gave Williams more open space over the middle of the field to catch and run.
Here we have a kind of classic Campbell moment. I would venture to say that most coaches, when the baseline numbers are that good and the team is winning, would have dismissed complaints about other offensive inefficiencies. I imagine Eagles fans—and certainly their most noteworthy wide receiver—know this situation all too well.
But Campbell is taking the long view in an appropriate manner. He’s bet on the idea that having his most outsized offensive talents more regularly invested in the game plan will pay dividends later in the season when he’ll need those players to be spectacular on a down-to-down basis. And, he’s letting players see that he’s wearing that responsibility himself.
Back when I interviewed Campbell for our Lions football preview issue cover story in 2024, he said that he wanted to now imagine himself as a kind of break in case of emergency option for a team and a coaching staff that took his raw idea of an identity and made it their own.
Well, he broke it on Sunday and the “emergency” was that the Lions weren’t quite the best offense in the NFL and they weren’t comfortably in first place. If that’s not the perfect essence of Campbell, I’m not sure what is.
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This article was originally published on www.si.com as Dan Campbell’s Big Move Sunday Shows the Lions Are Thinking Long Term.
