ALLEN PARK -- Dan Campbell made it clear. The Detroit Lions coach is not fueled by the outside negative voices, with losing his main motivation.
There have been plenty of outside voices calling for the Lions to experience regressions this season due to the two new coordinators and remade interior offensive line. And when the Lions opened the year with a dud in their loss against the Green Bay Packers, those voices grew in numbers and volume.
“You know what fuels my tank? Is losing, all right?” Campbell said on Wednesday. “That fuels me. I don’t like losing. Our players don’t like it. And you go back to work, man. You get back to the basics of what you do, and you hit it head-on.
“Nowhere to run. Nowhere to hide. We’re all accountable. And if we want to win, we’ve got to do the little things right and prepare that way. Then, we got to play that way. That’s what gets me going.”
Campbell isn’t surprised or even addressing those outside voices. He knows the Lions dropped the ball in the opener, saying the players made too many critical errors in critical spots. And that he might have put too much on their plate, judging by the missed assignments and communication lapses.
He also realizes that this is the world they are living in, and that it’s a sign that the standard has changed. Campbell said it’s all about fixing their issues, getting back to the basics and the belief that focusing on their fundamentals and improving the communication will fix a lot of their problems.
And for those ready to take these comments and act like Campbell is brushing them to the side or complaining. He’s not. He’s fully aware that the expectations for this team have changed since when he first arrived, and that Sunday’s showing in Green Bay fell well short of what’s expected from his Lions.
“That’s the nature of what we’re in right now,” Campbell said on Wednesday. “That’s a good thing. That means we’ve risen above what we were at one time. That’s our world. But I know if we felt that way and acted that way, we’d be in trouble. We can’t worry about all that. All you worry about is getting better. You really do.
“We got to get much better with our fundamentals and communication. Just those two things alone, and if we improve that, a whole other step above what we did last week, we’re going to be much better. Then let’s get a little better the next week, and it will take care of itself. It really will.”
With Super Bowl expectations and a roster full of talent on both sides of the ball, those voices will only get louder if the Lions come out flat again.
The defense turned the corner after a rough start. But the team’s offense was bottled all day, with the rushing attack getting hit in the backfield on 16 of 22 attempts and Jared Goff averaging only 3.3 air yards per completion.
“I think a lot of what really came out of that game and what it was -- like to me, we’d gotten ourselves in a hole,” Campbell said. “And it really, when it became a three-score game, that’s where it really got hard. It wasn’t the two-score game. If you can just pull it within one score, we’re good to go. But when you become a three-score game, then it becomes very hard because they know you have to go over the top. And so, I do think when you play, the right thing to do is to stay patient with it.”
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