Last season I went over the four things I was looking for out of Dan Campbell in his second year as head coach of the Detroit Lions. Last week we went over a progress report to see if Campbell had met some of those goals. Today it's time to think about the future. 

We're about to enter the third season with Campbell at the helm and if you go by the way movie franchises are laid out, the third movie has to be a big one. the stakes are higher than they've been before and there's going to be more explosions and more bad guys. Those last two don't really apply I guess. Everything else does though.

Here's four things we're looking for in year three of Campbell's run:

Avoid the slow start

It just can't happen again. You could look at the last two seasons and understand what may have gone wrong in the early going. Both of those very young teams were still trying to figure things out. 

There's no excuse in 2023. I'm not saying the Lions have to come out with a five game winning streak or something. That would be nice, but what I'm saying is much more rational. Just don't go into a hole that you have to climb yourself out of. 

The toughest stretch of the season, in theory, is that first block of games. The Lions take on the Chiefs, Seahawks, Falcons and Packers. You can't come out of this any worse than 2-2. Really, the floor should be 3-1, but some leniency is ok to have. 

Whatever they do, and I can't stress it enough, they just can't go into a hole again. If they do, difficult conversations may need to be had. 

Keep winning on the road

 The Lions are a dangerous team at home. We know that. It's on the road where this team is supposed to have it's biggest challenges. The Lions really struggled on the road for quite a while. They had lost 13 straight away games before they knocked off the Bears at Soldier Field. They then went on three of their four remaining road games. 

This has to keep happening. Winning at home is great, but you really show how good you are when you go and win in someone else's building. 

The good news on this end is that the Lions are a very good indoor team that plays a lot of indoor football this year. The Lions have nine away games in 2023. Five of them are indoors. Those five are also during the winter. There's just no reason this team shouldn't be able to win more away games this year. 

Don't get lost out there

This is on there yet again. Maybe it's just impossible to think that this is something that any coach can get over. They all make mistakes. It would just be nice to not see another missive mistake happen late in the game and cost the Lions again. 

Dan Campbell needs to try his hardest to make sure that whatever decisions he makes during games are thought out as much as they can be and that emotion is left out of them. I'm not saying that he's an emotional coach, but maybe the desire to beat the Vikings at home last season outweighed rationality down the stretch and you saw the Lions trying for a field goal with a bad kicker instead of aa punt with arguably the best punter in the league. At least one of them. That's just my view of it though. 

Mistakes will be made. They're unavoidable. The hope is that they're kept to a minimum and they're not back breaking. 

Win the NFC North

This is it right here. This is the one that matters more than anything else. It's time to throw some hefty weight on the shoulders of this team. It's time to go win something big. 

The road has been cleared for this team. The rest of the division is looking as bad as its looked in quite a while and the Lions are the only team within the NFC North that looks like a team that can win a division. They just have to go do it. 

We've seen this movie before. The Lions have been in place to win the north and failed. The 2013 debacle still lives rent free in the heads of Lions fans. There's just no excuse. Go win it. This has to be the year where the Lions take the next step as a franchise. This is that next step. 

Lions progress report: Dan Campbell

Grading Dan Campbell first two years as Lions coach

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