No longer underdogs, the Lions still have plenty to prove with Dan Campbell and Jared Goff leading the charge

ALLEN PARK, Michigan. – The Detroit Lions have fully embraced the underdog mentality in 2021 following the infamous Dan Campbell kneecap press conference. They leaned on that when they didn’t get a win until Thanksgiving, and that was still a thing even as they turned the corner midway through the 2022 season.

Last year, finally, was the breakthrough. A 12-5 season. An NFC North title. Accumulating more playoff wins in two weeks than in the previous six decades combined.

The 2024 Lions can’t be the underdogs anymore, right?

“I don’t feel like we’re at a disadvantage…” Campbell started telling me last week at minicamp. “I think our guys know where we stand. I would say this: The motivator is we still have things that we circle as well. We have our own shit list. So we’re the team with the target on our back, but we also circle some people. Also We have targets.

“It’s not like we ran over everybody last year and blew everybody up. We’ve had losses and we’ve had tough games. We have divisional opponents. We lost in the NFC championship game. So we have our own goals, man. And that’s the motivator .”

Things are the same but different with these Lions. They dealt with the hype and now they are dealing with the expectations.

Campbell was the lead singer of this band when he took over in 2021. Perhaps the (literal) strongest head coach in the NFLCampbell has always been the voice of the team internally and externally.

But the plan all along was for the players to lead the team. Amon-Ra St. Brown, Alim McNeill and Penei Sewell had to grow up in the program. Veterans like Frank Ragnow and Taylor Decker had to relearn what it was like to win. Even quarterback Jared Goff had to regain his confidence.

And Campbell realized last year that the paradigm had shifted. He wouldn’t need to talk so much in a team meeting because one of the players has already done so.

“Until they take the reins, then it’s my job and the coaches’ job. Until they find their own voice and lead this team, then I and this coaching staff will lead this team,” Campbell said. “And the best teams are led by their leaders and by their teammates and colleagues. It doesn’t come from the coaches. And that’s what’s happening, and that’s always been the vision.”

Goff is unquestionably the leader of this team. He signed a four-year, $212 million contract extension this offseason as proof positive that he will be the guy for the next few years in Detroit.

Except he doesn’t allow himself to believe it. No more.

In 2019, he had success in the playoffs and later earned a top-tier contract for his performance with the Los Angeles Rams. Five years later, he did the same thing with the Lions.

So when I meet with him at minicamp, I assume he feels differently about this deal than the previous one.

“I feel very different,” Goff tells me. “That was obviously much more difficult and had a much deeper meaning for the city and the fans. And I had to go through a lot personally to get to this point. That’s the main difference. I think the last three or four years have taught me that every day is valuable.

“I feel like every day I have to prove myself, because at one point that was reality. Well… it’s reality, but I feel it in my heart and I don’t think it will ever leave me. I think maybe when I was in the third year with a new contract I thought, ‘Oh, I’m just the starter.’ And sometimes you don’t know anything. I feel like because of everything I’ve been through, I feel like every day I have to go out here and prove to myself and my teammates and my coaches that I’m the right guy. lead them.”

I respectfully tell Goff that the reality for me and everyone else is that you are the guy. The $113.6 million in guaranteed money and a full no-trade clause do not go into reserve. In what world are they going to negotiate with you and call this contract a mistake like the Rams did?

“But it doesn’t matter what anyone else thinks,” Goff said. “My thought process has changed to that and I think that’s the way it should be. How long am I going to play football? I don’t know. Hopefully for a long time, but maybe one day I won’t play here and I hope to look back and say that all I went there every day and tried to prove whether it worked or not, at least every day I was never resting on my laurels and I don’t believe that I was and I don’t want to say that that was the case.

“I’m much more conscious of actively proving myself every day. And even though people might say, ‘Well, you proved that. You are the starter and have been the starter for eight years.’ I don’t see it that way. And I don’t know if I’ll ever see it. And that’s how I am.

In the 34-31 NFC title game loss to the 49ers, the Lions were a third-quarter fumble, or a circus catch by Brandon Aiyuk, or a different fourth-down decision before facing the Chiefs in Super Bowl LVIII.

After that, Campbell said it will be “twice as hard” for the Lions to get back to the conference title game. He preaches today about how “it will take more” for this group to overcome this obstacle.

“You need to focus more on the details,” Campbell said. “One of the things I always thought we did a great job of and preached around here was dealing with pressure. When everything is against you and your back is against the wall and you have no timeout and defense, you are stuck there, that’s when a lot of people break and we don’t break. We found a way out of this situation and we broke. why they went where they went.

“That’s the next step we have to overcome. We have to be able to handle it at this level, even if it’s away from home against a top-tier opponent. That’s the next level.”

The expectations inside the building are the same, Goff told me. This time last year, the Lions expected to be in the Super Bowl just like they are today. Maybe the results were surprising for all of us, but not for them.

But there is even greater attention to detail, as Campbell noted. On the second day of minicamp, Campbell put his first and second teams through seven different endgame situations.

Trailing 34-28 with 15 seconds left at the 16-yard line, the Lions offense finally reached the end zone on a pass from Goff to St. Brown as time expired in the mock drill. And that’s the “more” Campbell keeps talking about.

“That’s a perfect example,” Goff said. “These standards and the way we conduct our business on a daily basis and ultimately on Sunday will certainly rise for ourselves. But our expectations of what we can be are the same as they have always been.”

The Detroit Lions are different and the same.