This is hard for a Bears fan to admit, and I might, later on, decide to deny I ever said it, but I was pulling for the Detroit Lions (God, that was uncomfortable to type). It hasn’t always been this way, of course. There was the heated rivalry between Chicago and Detroit during the Barry Sanders years, and it reared its ugly head again when the Chicago secondary was trying to stop Calvin Johnson from ruining our season(s). But it was really hard not to see what was happening in Detroit this season and admire it, all while desperately wishing it was our turn for a year that makes you believe again. This is how I, to no one’s shock more than mine, found myself rooting for the Detroit Lions Sunday.
I remember the day Detroit introduced their new head coach. When Campbell was hired in 2021, Detroit had spent the last three seasons in fourth place in the NFC North, having for some reason previously decided that Matt Patricia was the answer to what ailed the Motor City. (Public Service Note: Matt Patricia is never, ever the answer to anything. Ever.) The Bears, on the other hand, were coming off a couple of Wild Card berths in 2018 and 2020. So it was easy to laugh at the Lions’ new head coach, who introduced himself to the NFL with a soliloquy on how many kneecaps he wanted to bite.
“So this team’s going to be built on ‘we’re going to kick you in the teeth, all right, 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, “ Campbell said back in 2021. “And we’re going to stand up, and then 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, and we’re going to get up and then it’s going to take three shots to get us down. And, when we do, we’re going to take another hunk out of you.’ Before long, we’re going to be the last one standing. That’s going to be the mentality.”
The whole thing was easily laughed off as another NFL tough guy who was going to preach the smash-mouth football we still revere here in the Midwest, even as more progressive offenses have vaulted other teams to the Super Bowl. The Lions were dumb enough to hire Patricia, so there was no reason to believe Campbell wasn’t just another Dick Butkus sound-alike, who was going to yell about biting off enemy limbs while watching his team get annihilated on a weekly basis.
By the end of the 2022 season, it was pretty clear Detroit was on an upward trajectory, and while the Bears put yet another bewildered-looking neophyte on the sidelines in Matt Eberflus, it was hard not to be increasingly jealous of what Campbell had created in Detroit, especially after they clobbered the Bears 41-10 in Week 17. Suddenly, it seemed Detroit had embodied the rough and tumble image that Chicagoans always associated with the Bears. And while our stock continued to fall, we found ourselves on the outside looking in at the kind of aggressive football we wanted from our team.
All of this is to say that I came to admire Dan Campbell’s “damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead” attitude, which some claim ultimately cost the Lions a trip to the Super Bowl. In Sunday’s NFC Championship Game against the 49ers, Campbell chose to go for it on fourth down, twice, once up 24-10 with seven minutes left in the 3rd quarter, rather than taking the chance on a 46-yard field goal, and again in with 7:38 left in the fourth quarter, instead of trying a 48-yarder for the tie. In hindsight, taking the three points seems like a no-brainer, especially when six points is more than the three points that made up San Francisco’s margin of victory.
To paraphrase what someone once said about going for it on fourth-and one, if you don’t trust your team to gain a single yard, what are you even doing out there? While slightly more difficult, the same sentiment probably applies to two yards, maybe even three. And when your team is playing in the NFC Championship Game, how can you not believe in them? And why would you change up the “double or nothing” attitude that got your team there in the first place?
This is far from the first time Campbell has bucked convention to do it his way. In December of 2022, Campbell had left tackle Penei Sewell report as an eligible receiver, a trick play in which Detroit converted on a third and seven that put them up by two scores on the Vikings with two minutes remaining. In a loss to the Cowboys in late December, Campbell tried a two-point conversion from the 7-yard line. That same game, Campbell & Company pulled off a fake punt from their own 28-yard line on fourth and two that resulted in a 31-yard toss to Khalil Dorsey. The Lions lost the game, 20-19, but there was no doubt that Campbell believed in his players, who in turn, appear willing to run through a brick wall for him.
Playing Monday morning quarterback is easier than making the decisions in real time in the pressure cooker of the NFL playoffs with a trip to the Super Bowl on the line, but you can’t say Campbell didn’t stick with what got him to the NFC Championship Game— a willingness to do the unanticipated and an unwavering faith in his team. Head coaches who suddenly shy away from the aggressive play-calling that got them deep into the playoffs is an annual lament from fans on the losing side of postseason games, anyway. How often do we hear fans and commentators bemoaning a team “not playing to win, playing to not lose” every season? We hear it a lot.
When Matt Nagy was the head coach of the Bears, he used to have a little sticker on his playsheet that said “Be You.” It became a punchline for Bears fans, as the only thing we could figure Nagy was was a guy who had an offense that worked perfectly in his head, but not very well on the field, à la Brian Wilson’s quest for the perfect song. No one can accuse Campbell of turning into someone else once the pressure was on. And no one can claim he wilted under pressure or stopped believing in his team.
We could sure use a guy like that in Chicago. Anyone in Detroit up for a trade?
