Dan Campbell and Brad Holmes have full security with the Lions, and hot takes questioning that stability shouldn’t be taken seriously
Welcome to hot take season, ladies and gentlemen. We’re here. The hottest take that’s been fired off so far is from Detroit Free Press writer Carlos Monarez, who penned a column stating that seats could be hot for Dan Campbell and Brad Holmes if the Lions flop in the playoffs again. To a degree, Monarez […]
Welcome to hot take season, ladies and gentlemen. We’re here. The hottest take that’s been fired off so far is from Detroit Free Press writer Carlos Monarez, who penned a column stating that seats could be hot for Dan Campbell and Brad Holmes if the Lions flop in the playoffs again.
To a degree, Monarez is right. If the Lions have a solid regular season and then fail to make things happen in the playoffs again, their seats will get hot. But that is only going to be in the minds of the people who already have that in their minds. Either casual football fans or the national media looking for a story to tell. But not in the eyes of people who actually matter or can make the decision as to whose seats are hot.
You have to understand that when Sheila Ford Hamp and Rod Wood hired Campbell and Holmes in 2021, the idea was to have sustained success with the Lions for a long time. This is the first time this franchise has ever experienced something like this, and it came from a group effort. That group is fronted to the public by Campbell and Holmes, but Hamp is a part of that too, and she’s expressed no concerns with this group. It’s actually been the opposite when things were bad.
When the Lions looked horrible to start 2022, it was Ford Hamp who came out and did a state of the union type address where she put her full confidence behind this group. Since then, the Lions have done nothing but win. They went to the NFC Championship game in 2023 and then the Divisional game in 2024. They lost both of those games for different reasons, but bad coaching and poor player selections are definitely not one of those reasons.
Plus, the Lions have set the franchise record for most wins in a season, and they’ve won two division titles in a row. This isn’t the Steelers, where they keep making the playoffs and nothing happens. They’re a good team, and they’re expected to have big things happen and they’ve proven that when they’re healthy, big things do happen.
From a business standpoint, this team is printing money right now, and the fans have completely adopted the identity that Holmes and Campbell have brought to the franchise. You can’t walk around this town without seeing at least one person with a Linos hat or shirt that says “Grit” on it.
This isn’t Jim Schwartz or Jim Caldwell, where things were good, but they weren’t good enough, so they hired guys to get to the next level. The Lions are already at the next level. This is it right here. Anything else is starting over at the bottom and trying again, and I can promise that Ford Hamp and Wood have no desire to go anywhere near that.
This is just common sense at the end of the day. The Lions are really good and are Super Bowl contenders. A loss in the playoffs this year isn’t going to change that. They’ve built themselves so well that the window is nowhere near being closed, no matter how badly Bears, Packers, and Vikings fans want to tell you it is in the comment section. You don’t upset that.
Now, if it’s 2028 and the Lions haven’t won a Super Bowl yet, then we can talk about seats getting hot. Right now is way too early.
