Sports
Martha Ford
We missed those spirited victory rants in the locker room from Detroit Lions coach Dan Campbell.
On Sunday, at Ford Field, we not only heard the trademark Campbell rant for the first time this season in Detroit's 52-21 romp over Ben Johnson's Chicago Bears, but we also saw him hand out game balls in the locker room to three people—one of whom was Martha Ford, who stepped down as the principal owner and chairman of the Detroit Lions in 2020 and handed over the role to her daughter, Sheila Ford Hamp.
"I got three-game balls," Campbell said as he turned a ball over to Martha Ford as her daughter Sheila looked on. "I'm going to start here, all right. We got a birthday. actually Tuesday, it's her 100th birthday, Mrs. Ford."
"I'm so proud of you all," Martha Ford said, standing in front of her walker, holding on to a football. "And I'm so thankful for this. I'm so proud of what you're doing. I can't tell you how thrilled I am with each game and I've seen the results. And I think we've got a great leader."
Dan Campbell in the locker room at Ford Field on Sunday after victory over Chicago
Campbell also gave balls to safety Brian Branch, who had six total tackles, one sack and one forced fumble, and wide receiver Amon-Ra St. Brown who had nine catches and three touchdowns.
Campbell started out by telling the team:
'There's nothing like getting your first win of the season, and playing better than we did last week, a lot freaking better. I bet we go through the tape, we're going to say communication was better, the execution was better. Everybody was on point and we won a lot of one on ones. We won a ton of them.
That's what the tape's going say. There's a lot to clean up, and we will clean it up. You only worry about what we can worry about, man, which is doing our own job...We believe in us. We're the ones who put in the work. They forgot about who we were. It's like they forgot that we're fighters."