It’s official: Detroit Lions hire Dan Campbell as their head coach
After a week of speculation, it’s now official: The Detroit Lions have hired former Saints tight ends coach/assistant head coach Dan Campbell as their next head coach. The deal is reportedly a six-year contract.
From the beginning of the coaching search, the Lions said they were targeting a coach with great leadership and teamwork skills who can work alongside a general manager to create a positive culture of inclusivity, awareness, and open communication. With Campbell, they believe they got their man.
Campbell was selected in the third round of the 1999 NFL draft by the New York Giants. He would play in the league for 11 years, including three (2006-08) with the Lions, and retired after being part of the Saints 2009-10 Super Bowl-winning team.
In 2010 he took a coaching internship position with the Miami Dolphins and was promoted to tight ends coach the next season. He remained in that role until 2015 when he took over as interim coach after Joe Philbin was fired, finishing out the final 12 games. He would go 5-7 over that period and was not retained at season’s end.
He was immediately offered several coaching opportunities, including deals from the Dallas Cowboys and Minnesota Vikings, but he took a job as a tight ends coach and assistant head coach with Saints because he wanted an opportunity to work with coach Sean Payton. Campbell played for Payton and Bill Parcells in Dallas, and because of this previous relationship, Campbell believed it provided him an opportunity to maximize his development.
Campbell has been interviewed regularly for head-coaching positions since leaving Miami, even being one of the finalists for the Colts job in 2018, but he never found a fit until Detroit came calling.
The Lions were looking for a coach with intangibles, not necessarily someone an offensive/defensive guru.
“My No. 1, core traits were, first of all, he’s got to be a leader of men,” Lions general manager Brad Holmes said when describing what he was looking for in a head coach. “He’s got to be a leader of men. He’s got to have presence and within that presence, he’s got to have poise. He has to have confidence. He has to have command. He has to have mental toughness. He has to have intelligence, and I stress the mental toughness part because there will be ups and downs where that stress tolerance has to be at the right level, and to be able to persevere through those moments.”
While Campbell has never been a coordinator, he checks all the boxes Holmes listed above. Campbell is known as a motivator with strong leadership skills. Someone that players want to play for, while also respecting what he has to say because he was once in their shoes.
“He’s a guy who played a long time,” Saints QB Drew Brees told ESPN’s Mike Triplett. “So he’s got a level of respect coming from guys for how he played — he’s a tough, physical guy. He just really cares about his players. You can see that in the way he talks to us, talks to his position group. He’s just got a lot of great leadership qualities in that way. And I think he’s just a good person.
“So you combine all those things, and then he’s a person that you want to follow. And a person you believe in and you know he’s gonna be honest with you.”
Saints left tackle Terron Armstead also spoke highly of Campbell.
“He got it, man. He got it. Everybody here would do whatever for that guy,” Armstead said. “Being so relatable, having done it for so long, just has a great connection with the younger players. I’ve never seen him badmouth anybody, [it’s] more talking up to you. Even when they mess up, he’s gonna talk up to them. And you just want to play for somebody like that.
“You want to run through a brick wall for him. I would.”
The Lions want to change their culture, and with Campbell, they will get an opportunity to do that.
