When you think of tough teams in the NFL, one of the first teams to come to mind is the Pittsburgh Steelers and it has been there for quite some time now.
The Steelers were certainly one of the toughest teams in the NFL when Bill Cowher was their head coach from 1992 through 2006.
But one team that Cowher does not think is very tough is the Detroit Lions.
From Detroit News:
“I always looked at the Lions, to me, I never thought of them as being a tough team,” Cowher said. “I just never have. Does it go back to Barry Sanders, his way of running and his style, which was so uniquely special? But Dan Campbell does give them a unique personality. He is going to sit there and talk about a culture that’s based on us being tough, biting off kneecaps on the way getting back up. We’re not going to be defined by how many times we get knocked down, and if we keep getting knocked down, we’ll start biting off your ankles.
“He’s going to go down fighting,” Cowher continued. “That’s kind of who he is, right? I don’t think that’s a bad thing. Honestly, why not? It starts from the inside out. There’s going to be a degree of toughness that they’re going to play with, they’re going to have to practice with, and that will be their approach.”
Cowher is 100% correct with this take. Sure, the Lions have had some tough individual players but in the 3+ decades that I have watched them, I would never call them, “tough.”
