The Chicago Bears come to Ford Field this weekend, and yes, it’s the return of Ben Johnson, the former Detroit Lions offensive coordinator who bolted for a division rival after last year’s playoff exit. Naturally, the hot topic this week has been whether Johnson will try to get cute with trick plays against his old team.
Dan Campbell? He couldn’t care less.
Dan Campbell on Ben Johnson trick plays
Campbell on Trick Plays: “I Don’t Really Care”
Campbell was asked directly about preparing for Johnson’s creativity, and his answer was classic Dan Campbell, no nonsense, straight to the point.
“You’ll practice one or two things, you do it for every opponent. But, I don’t really care about trick plays,” Campbell said Wednesday. “Let’s just handle the meat and potatoes of an offense, a defense, what we think they’re going to hang their hat on, and let’s stop that first. Let’s worry about that, let’s make sure we’re all on point, and we’ll handle the other stuff with our rules. You have to have proper eyes, man, we give you those rules for a reason. And look, they may hit us on one, that’s alright. That happens, you get back in the huddle and let’s go to the next play.”
That’s vintage Campbell, focus on the fundamentals, and don’t get distracted by the bells and whistles.
The Bigger Picture
Sure, Johnson has been credited with designing some of Detroit’s most creative offensive wrinkles over the last couple years. But Campbell pointed out that trick plays weren’t some every-drive gimmick, even when Johnson was in Detroit. And if the Bears do happen to catch the Lions off guard once? So what.
“You can’t sit there and paralyze yourself with, ‘What if? What if? What if?’” Campbell said. “The most important thing is you’ll get in trouble if you don’t handle the nuts and bolts of an offense. If you can’t stop the run, we bleed out explosives, then that’s where you can get in trouble. So, I’m not worried about the other stuff.”
The message is clear: Detroit isn’t going to waste valuable preparation time chasing hypothetical trick plays. Campbell wants his team to tighten up the basics first, blocking, tackling, communication, the things that actually win football games.
Back to Basics Week
If there’s one theme that keeps coming up from Allen Park this week, it’s simplicity. The Lions don’t want to get bogged down in “what ifs.” They want to fix what went wrong in Green Bay and put together a cleaner, more physical performance at home.
Ben Johnson may have a few surprises tucked into his playbook. But Campbell isn’t sweating it, and he doesn’t want his team sweating it either.