Originally published on January 22, 2021:
The “defensive guru/rocket scientist” Matt Patricia is long gone (thankfully) and Dan Campbell has been hired as the new head coach of the Detroit Lions.
On Friday morning, Campbell joined 97.1’s “Stoney and Jansen with Heather” show and he talked about the Lions struggles on defense. Though he did not call out Patricia by name, I believe it was pretty clear that Campbell was not a fan of how the Lions were coached during the 2020 season.
“Let me say this: It almost looked like they were trying to figure out, ‘What world are we in right now? Are we trying to play this four-down, up the field? Are trying to two-gap? Am I trying to set an edge? Am I squeezing? Where’s the safety fitting?’ I just felt like it was a little disheveled. That’s all,’ Campbell said.
“Look, I’m not trying to blame the coaching staff, but that’s also not on the players all the time either now,” Campbell continued. “Certainly, when you don’t know what you’re doing all the time, or you’re not 100 percent sure, you’re not going to play to the talent level that you have.”
“I will tell you this: That’s the last thing that we’re going to do here. Our players are going to know what to do so that we get 100 percent of their talent. We will pull it out of them, because they know exactly what to do, when to do it, how to do it, and they’re going to pull the trigger and go.”
Nation, do you believe that Campbell will be able to help turn around the Lions’ defense in 2021?
Campbell needs to do better on both sides of the ball before he criticizes other coaches