I’ve been covering the Detroit Lions for a long time now. Since the 2014 season, to be exact. So I’ve been watching Dan Campbell’s pressers for a long time.

In the past few years, you’ve gotten used to a certain cadence. A certain way you expect him to act, and some of that is fun, and some of that is maybe hyping guys up or saying things that just generally make you want to run through a brick wall.

The Lions feel like a team that’s trying to remember themselves at this point, and the only way to do that is to go back to the beginning

Things have been noticeably different this offseason. They’ve felt different since Dan Campbell’s end-of-year presser, where he said he wanted to get back to who the team was in the past.

“I think as far as doing things, some of it is a little bit like I want to get back to some of the things we were doing a couple of years ago. And what I mean by that is just getting back to a little bit of what we did at the ground level, just little bit of the way we train, the way we go about things. This is going to be a good training camp for us. We’re going to go back and really sharpen the sword a little bit. And I know that’s a ways off, but I think that’s the big thing.”

The Lions were not themselves in 2025. They got kicked in the face on a Saturday night with a steel-toe grip Kodiak work boot, a trip to the hospital, bloodied and bashed, for reconstructive surgery. It was embarrassing for them.

That’s why you’ve seen the Lions take this no-nonsense approach to the offseason, and they’ve changed a ton about what they’re doing as well. No more rookie minicamp, no more joint practices, no more going to the league meetings. It’s about football, and that is it.

On Friday, we got to see Campbell back at work at Allen Park for the first time since that end-of-year presser, and you just felt the difference in the air. He refused to hype anyone up. His answers were straightforward, and it was hard to come away from this thing without thinking that these guys might be going through one of the toughest training camps in a long time.

By that, I don’t mean that the Lipons are going to go out there and do anything that is going to get their players hurt or something like that. But the feeling you did get is that everyone, and I mean everyone, is starting from zero. They’re all at the same level, and everyone has to earn their job.

“I’m done with the hype of the pajama party in May.” Campbell said. “It’s about the mental, it’s about the movement skills, like all that other stuff doesn’t matter. And then we’ll find out in training camp who’s who. This will be the most competition we’ve had, in my opinion. I think top-tier competition.”

Now, Campbell didn’t come right out and say that everyone is starting from zero. It’s important that you know that this is us just reading the vibes and the tea leaves of the situation. That’s what those things are telling us.

Really, it’s what the Lions need at this point, probably more than anything. A reset. Not a total reset, but a reset of their competitive nature. Everyone here wants to win a Super Bowl, but maybe it’s ok to say that the team got to a point where they believed in their own hype and that affected them. That’s a human nature thing.

The only way to correct that is to get kicked in the face and realize that you need to go back to the drive and no-nonsense approach you had to get to the point where you started feeling like you were really good. If you remember how the Lions got here, you know it started with the feeling that nobody was safe and everyone had to earn their starting jobs and their reps.

Obviously, you know some guys just have that in the bag, but they don’t have to say that out loud. They shouldn’t say that out loud. Let everyone go earn and see what you get. I bet that you get something you like out of it.