Dan Campbell played the final three seasons of his lengthy NFL career as a Detroit Lion. Those three years, 2006 through 2008, coincide with the darkest time in the franchise’s less-than-stellar history.
Campbell, now the Lions head coach, knows full well the “same old Lions” saying. The derisive “SOL” is a yoke around the franchise that many fans and certain media use all the time to explain why the Lions will never find success.
But Campbell sees the SOL as a recruiting tool. And it worked on him as a player nearly 20 years ago.
“Yes, I knew (about SOL) when I signed here as a player. For me, it was one of the reasons I wanted to sign here because man, who doesn’t want to come here and change that, to be part of that team that turns it around?”, Campbell said before Thursday’s practice.
Coach Campbell continued,
“I think that’s a motivating factor, and so I think for all of us coaches and players. But yeah, I think it’s a motivating factor. We can go round and round on this. You guys have lived it. Once you’ve gone through a great suffering if you will, as it pertains to sports and Lions football, then that’s when there’s a great triumph. And to be a part of that, to be able to help it become that, man that’s something special. I mean, that is special. Yeah, I think that motivates all of us a little bit here.”
It requires a different type of mindset to want to be part of an uprising rather than joining a team that has already had considerable success. Campbell embraces and embodies that mindset and wants players who are cut from that cloth, too.
