Dan Campbell's aggressiveness comes from lessons he learned in the past
I don't if anyone has noticed, but Detroit Lions Head Coach Dan Campbell loves to fake a punt. He's attempted eight of them since he became the Lions coach and he's converted on seven of them. That incudes last Thursday's insane fake punt for the Lions own 17. There might be a reason why Campbell […]
I don't if anyone has noticed, but Detroit Lions Head Coach Dan Campbell loves to fake a punt. He's attempted eight of them since he became the Lions coach and he's converted on seven of them. That incudes last Thursday's insane fake punt for the Lions own 17.
There might be a reason why Campbell does all of this and where that aggressiveness comes from.
Honestly, I really believe it was more of an epiphany, if you will. The time I had at Miami, I just remember once I was done there, I had regrets, particularly in special teams, that I didn't use it more." Campbell said." We had Darren Rizzi, he's at New Orleans now. He's an outstanding special teams coach. And I just remember always it just stuck with me. And then certainly going with Sean (Payton) as a coach, I'd been with him as a player. He made everything very clear. We knew exactly when criticals were going to come up, what we were going to do and how are we going to handle it. Just being under Coach Payton for five years it gives, you a whole different perspective, it did for me. So I think that's really where it comes from."
That makes a lot of sense on two different levels. You can see the influence form Payton for sure. Payton just tried an onside kick on the very first kickoff of the year for the Broncos on Sunday. He also memorably used on against the Colts in Super Bowl 44. You can see where the use of special teams in an aggressive way comes from.
With Miami, you can see why Campbell might have been a little hesitant to get crazy. He was an interim head coach and maybe he didn't rock the boat too much for fear that he might not get a chance to be the Dolphins full time head coach. but clearly that stuck with him and he and Lions Special Teams Coach Dave Fipp are now working on all kinds of creations together.
The interesting thing is that of those eight fake punts, I can't recall any one of them looking the same as the other. So the creativity is there for sure. The thing that really needs to be praised here is that Campbell is nailing them because while you know he likes to do it, you never know when it's going to happen. Campbell says he doesn't want or need the praise though.
"No, I don't, no. Believe me, I don't need anything. We got a W and look, I can make all the wrong decisions and if we win, I'm all good. We'll take it." Campbell said . so you know, look, we say it all the time, no matter what call comes out of it, you're making that call because you're leaning on a certain group you know, offense defense, special teams. And you're trusting those guys in the moment and if something doesn't work out, then those guys will bail you out. And we got to do our job for them to give them the best game plan we can. But no, listen, you call the game as you see it and what you feel like is the right thing in the moment and you go with it."
Here's hoping Campbell keeps going with it and surprising us with more fake punts and more aggressiveness.
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