A big philosophy change is coming for the Lions, and they’ll be looking towards their past to get to it

Dan Campbell wants to go back to how the Lions used to do things.

Mike Payton — Detroit Lions Beat Writer
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The Detroit Lions’ season did not go the way anyone wanted, especially for head coach Dan Campbell.

On Monday, he gave himself a “freaking F” grade for the season because the Lions didn’t get into the playoffs. So what’s the plan? There were two big takeaways from Campbell’s last weekly presser of the season.

Get back to where they were a couple of years ago on the ground level

“Whatever is best for this team, I’m gonna do. What I believe is best for this team, I will do,” Campbell said. “I want to get back to some of the things we were doing a couple years ago. What I mean by that is, just getting back to a little bit of what we did at the ground level. The way we train, the way we go about things. This is going to be a good training camp for us. We’re gonna go back and really sharpen the sword.”

When I hear that, I hear a guy saying the Lions are no longer going to act as if they’re a team that won two division titles in the last three years. They no longer want to be the hunted; they want to go back to being the hunters. They want to be the team that waits in the deep and drags their opponent down with them.

That’s a large philosophy change to make, but it needs to be made. I don’t want to accuse the Lions of being soft after some winning seasons, and that is not what I’m doing, but I am saying that a kick in the face on a Saturday night with a steel-toe grip Kodiak work boot and a trip to the hospital, bloodied and bashed for reconstructive surgery, might have been exactly what this team needed.

It’s a sharp course correction.

You can either go try something new, go back to what brought you to the dance, or do a little bit of both. It sounds like the Lions plan to do the latter.

It starts with the coaching staff

Campbell said he hadn’t made any decisions yet in this regard. He did say that the first order of business was to get this staff right and that change was coming. How much change remains to be seen, but you have to believe, based on the way he’s been talking recently, that it could be sweeping changes, with maybe only a few guys safe.

In terms of offensive play-calling, Campbell said he wanted to do what is best for the team. However, he also said he saw one big benefit to calling plays: the Lions didn’t have to worry about that guy getting stolen away. So who knows what the route is there? What we know now is that the staff is the first thing on the docket. We’ll see where it goes from there.

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