If there’s one thing we know about Detroit Lions head coach Dan Campbell, it’s that he’s a pretty aggressive guy. The man loves to go for it on fourth down, fake punts, and do all kinds of dangerous things.

There’s been some thought that with a new play caller entering the fray, maybe the aggressiveness might get tamped down a bit. That’s probably not happening.

The Lions actually might be more aggressive than ever before in 2026

FTN’s Aaron Schatz, the creator of DVOA, recently put out the numbers for the most aggressive coaches in the NFL in 2025. You won’t be surprised to see that Dan Campbell was the second most aggressive head coach in the league. Can you guess who the number one guy was? Was it Campbell’s mentor Sean Payton? No, he was 17th. Was it his protege Ben Johnson? No, he was third.

The number one guy was the Lions’ new “high-ranking offensive coach” Mike Kafka.

“Once again this year, the most aggressive coach was Dan Campbell of the Detroit Lions, who goes for it even sometimes when the models say to kick. Campbell had an AgIx of 2.02, which was the highest among head coaches who served for the full season.” Schantz said. “(Mike Kafka, who coached the Giants over the final seven games, had an AgIx of 2.47.) Campbell went for it on all nine qualifying fourth-and-1 opportunities and seven of 11 qualifying fourth-and-2 opportunities.”

Kafka didn’t have a lot of time as the Giants’ interim head coach, but when he was, he went for it on fourth down and short 11 times in seven games. That’s quite a bit.

Then, if you go down to the ninth spot on the list, you’ll see Jonathan Gannon. Now, Gannon gets the majority of the credit, but it was new Lions offensive coordinator Drew Petzing who was calling the plays there. We’ve already talked about how the Cardinals ran the ball a lot with the intentions of getting to fourth and manageable, where they can go for it. That really fits the mold of what Campbell and the Lions love to do.

If this scares you, I get it. But this is Lions football. Going for it has rarely been the problem. It’s a little more amplified when it doesn’t work out. But more often it has. Just not this season. The thing the Lions need some help with is knowing what play to run on those fourth downs and not getting too cute with it when it’s unnecessary to get cute.

If you need one yard, get one yard. Don’t draw up a direct snap to David Montgomery with the intention of passing the ball to Jared Goff. Also, maybe don’t draw up a home run ball. Get the short yards and live to fight another day. The hope is that Petzing and Kafka can bring new ideas to that side of things.

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