When the NFL set its opening-night matchup, it did what Jameson Williams did not: It wagered on the Lions. Kansas City earned the right to host Thursday’s game by winning Super Bowl LVII. The Lions earned the league’s belief that they could make a game of it.
Well, we’ll see. Kansas City is a 6.5-point favorite. Since Patrick Mahomes became the starter, Kansas City is 17–3 in the first four games of the season. Only one of those losses came at home. But the league believes for reasons that go beyond this matchup.
The Lions … this is still kind of hard to believe … know what they’re doing.
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In an odd way, Williams, the Lions second-year receiver, reinforces the point. He won’t play in the opener. He was suspended for six games for gambling on non-NFL games at work, as the league enforced its silly gambling credo: “You don’t have to go home, but you can’t bet here.” He could yet become a star, but injuries, the suspension, and some drops have raised the real possibility that trading up to choose him with the 12th pick in 2022 was a mistake.
Every organization makes mistakes. The best ones shake them off. Lions general manager Brad Holmes and head coach Dan Campbell have done such a good job of building and developing depth that they can survive the misses.
“When we first got here, those two were clear: This is the type of player we want, the type of guys we want,’” Holmes’s deputy, Ray Agnew, said last week. “I’ve been places where it doesn’t happen that way, and it’s tough to deal with.”
Detroit used to be one of those places. But now Lions fans are excited in a way that most fan bases can’t fully appreciate. It’s not just because this year’s team should be good. The Lions have had good teams before. It certainly isn’t because Lions fans expect to win the Super Bowl; there are at least a half-dozen teams that are more likely to win it, and anyway, an essential part of being a Lions fan is never expecting to win the Super Bowl.
No, fans are excited because for the first time in most of their lifetimes, the Lions are operating like the best teams in the NFL. There is more substance than style. Decisions don’t always work out, but they always seem to make sense. Philosophy trumps agendas, but it does not stifle creativity.
“Every draft pick is very intentional,” Holmes said last week. “It’s not just about finding a talented guy. They’re team guys, they’re locker-room guys, they fit us.”
But it’s also not just about finding team guys who fit the locker room. Do that, and you end up with a hard-nosed 4–13 team.
The Lions went from 1–6 to 9–8 last year, finishing with a Sunday Night Football win in Green Bay that ended Aaron Rodgers’s Packers career. It was a storybook finish that did not feel like a storybook at all. There was nothing fluky about it. They went 3–1 against teams that made the playoffs.
When Campbell was hired, the fear was that he would be old school to a fault: insisting that grit wins football games, ignoring analytics and new ideas, convincing himself that conservative was the same as being wise. Instead, he has proven himself adept at the toughest balance for any coach: being adaptable while maintaining a core philosophy.
The Lions are as tough and relentless as Campbell promised they would be. The offensive line mauls people. But Campbell hired an inventive offensive coordinator, Ben Johnson, who is one of the league’s top coaching candidates, and trusts him to make bold calls.
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When Jared Goff struggled to connect with Campbell’s first offensive coordinator, Anthony Lynn, it would have been easy for Campbell to pin it on Goff. Campbell and Lynn were good friends. One of the NFL’s best offensive coaches, Sean McVay, had given up on Goff a few months earlier. Instead, Campbell fired Lynn, took over play-calling himself, and then hired Johnson. They have helped Goff become the best version of himself—somewhere between game manager and star—by trusting him exactly the right amount. Goff finished last season by throwing 324 passes without an interception, to which Campbell says: That streak will end, but so what?
“You can create a little fear if you’re not careful,” Campbell said. “There will be interceptions this year. That’s the nature of the game. We don’t want to coach out of fear.”
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Campbell and Holmes became extremely popular in Detroit because they were willing to be unpopular. They stuck with Goff when he looked lost. The fan base gladly would have brought back running back Jamaal Williams this year; the Lions let him go and signed younger David Montgomery to replace him. They then used their two first-round picks on running back Jahmyr Gibbs (after trading down) and linebacker Jack Campbell. Draft experts did not love the choices. The Lions don’t care. If they think a player can be productive for them, they want him.
“We’re not acquiring talent,” Campbell said. “We’re acquiring football players.”
In two years, Campbell has shown so many of the qualities that make for a great coach—and make a great coach so hard to find. He has a coordinator’s understanding of schemes but doesn’t micromanage. He embraces hard conversations and tough decisions. He owns mistakes and seems unaffected by criticism.
He will go to Kansas City confident that whatever happens in the game, he will go home with the same kind of team he brings there.
“We won’t sacrifice our identity for anything,” Campbell said. “We’re a pretty resilient group. That’s where it all starts.”
Holmes and Agnew admitted they were surprised by all the Lions hype this offseason. After all, the team didn’t even make the playoffs last year. But the team is not built on hype. It is built on the most solid foundation the Lions have had in decades.
