Lions Head Coach Dan Campbell joins Jim and Jon to discuss the Lions' huge come-from-behind victory over the Houston Texans, Taylor Decker's injury, and more.
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00:00Well, Dan, good morning. How do you describe a game like that?
00:05It's a W.
00:08Take it.
00:09You guys just find ways to win, it feels like, every single week, and it's not the same way every single week.
00:14No, it's not, and it doesn't matter how it goes.
00:18I mean, that is the nature of this league and the opponents that you face and where you're at.
00:23No two wins are alike, and that's ultimately what it comes down to is finding a way to win.
00:30And, you know, as long as you, you know, that's really part of your bedrock is overcoming,
00:38and no matter what, you're never out of it, and let's just find a way to get it right, and we do that.
00:45We have that. That is part of us, and that's the most important ingredient in any winning team.
00:50You know, you have some halves where, I mean, you go into halftime, you're up, maybe things have gone well,
00:55maybe things haven't gone well, but to continually shoot yourself in the foot, what was the conversation?
01:00How do you handle a halftime like that? Because defense came out with their hair on fire.
01:05Yeah, look, I thought our defense played pretty good.
01:09You know, there was a couple things early.
01:11I mean, we had them, you know, that first drive after a sudden change defensively,
01:16we had them in a third and 18, you know, they were already in field goal range,
01:21and, man, we should have gotten off the field, and, you know, we just, we make a little error there.
01:26And so a couple of these popped up, but you take that play away, you take another play away.
01:33For the most part, we played pretty dang good defensively, so we knew it was just, man, we were close to playing pretty clean.
01:44And then offensively, they just, you know, they came out, and we never really matched the intensity of that defense early.
01:53You know, we couldn't find a rhythm.
01:55And then, look, the turnovers hurt, but here's the thing.
02:01Look, the first turnover, golf's throwing a hot, and Petrie makes a hell of a play.
02:06Ball gets batted, they get a pick, right?
02:08And so now your defense is in a tough spot.
02:11You know, the next pick that you have is, you know, throwing to Laporta.
02:15It's a good throw, man.
02:16It's a timing throw.
02:17We just don't quite make the play.
02:18The guy makes a hell of a play on it.
02:20It was literally one of those days where, man, it just wasn't, you just felt like the energy was favoring them for that day for a while.
02:31But I also knew we would get out of it.
02:33It's just a matter of when.
02:35You know, you've got to fight your way out of that.
02:37Things aren't going your way.
02:39And we were able to do that.
02:41They showed you coming out of halftime, and your face looked red.
02:45Were you emotional?
02:46Were you fired up?
02:47Like, the tone of that halftime, how did you get those guys ready to play the second half?
02:53Well, look, I think we just talked about what we can do better, you know?
02:58I thought the coaches hit them.
03:00Well, there's a couple of things that we made a couple of adjustments.
03:04But also, I just wanted to see us come out and, you know, switch the intensity a little bit, you know, particularly offensively.
03:13Let's take it to them a little bit.
03:15And that was really the gist of it.
03:18It's just, you know, clean a couple things up.
03:20Nobody was frazzled.
03:22You know, nobody was, you know, there's always going to be a little frustration with those things.
03:26But yet, man, that doesn't put us in a bad way.
03:29We handle adversity pretty well here.
03:32So we knew we would get out of it.
03:34It's a matter of time.
03:36And so let's just worry about the next play in front of us and, you know, give that play your full attention and give it your full effort.
03:44And then let's see where this thing goes.
03:47Kickers can be a different bunch.
03:49And I've talked about my experience with them.
03:52I'm sure you've had some unique experiences with them.
03:54But Jake Bates, as a rookie, the Minnesota kick, these kicks in this game, I mean, he has had some.
04:01He has had some big moments for you guys.
04:04How do you help or how does Dave Phipp help him approach the game and moments like that?
04:13Well, I think you, you know, we try to put him in some of these pressure situations.
04:18You know, I kind of mentioned this a couple of days ago.
04:21I mean, we did this Thursday.
04:23We really put him in the game situation, the whole team around him, and it's for the win.
04:29And he nailed it.
04:30I mean, it was a kick longer than the one.
04:31He just nailed both of those kicks he made the other day in the game, you know.
04:35So I think that's important.
04:37You know, I try to apply a little pressure, and I have really since training camp, you know, just in my own way.
04:46Stuff that I know would probably irritate him, you know, and just to make him not worry.
04:53But, you know, don't worry about it.
04:54Block everything out.
04:55Do what you do.
04:56And he's good about that.
04:57I mean, he really is.
04:58He's pretty good about just, you know, he gets away from everybody, and he can kind of get in his own head in a good way
05:06and shut everything else out.
05:08And I do feel like there's something to him, you know, when, man, you put him in a competitive setting,
05:16and he's pretty good about that.
05:19And he just continues to get better and better.
05:22And he's a creature of habit.
05:25Phipp's done a great job with just, hey, man, trust your leg.
05:28Trust this ball's not going to move much because you've got such a powerful leg in it.
05:32You know, talking about like Green Bay last week in the Elements, man, you kick it the same way.
05:38And if you don't make it, that's on us, not him, you know, because we're asking him to kick it too far in the Elements.
05:43Well, same thing here, man.
05:44Just trust your leg.
05:45Push it.
05:46Don't worry about anything else.
05:47And, man, those were two huge kicks for us.
05:51You mentioned Jared Goff's first couple interceptions.
05:53The third one, of course, was just a deep ball before the half.
05:55But five interceptions is a headline.
05:57Level of concern with the way he played coming out of that game?
06:00None.
06:02I mean, everybody's going to think we're crazy.
06:05You're going to think I'm crazy.
06:06You know, any time you have five interceptions, you're like, oh, I'm telling you, he didn't play a bad game.
06:12He played a pretty good game.
06:13And, I mean, there's really not one of those.
06:18I guess there's maybe one.
06:19But he's going where we're telling him to go with the ball.
06:22And he's putting it where we're telling him to put it.
06:25And then there's a couple of these that get batted.
06:27I mean, you know, and it's like, oh, man, he gets batted up.
06:30You know, interception here at the line.
06:32He's getting ready to throw.
06:33It bounces off of the lineman.
06:35Interception.
06:36I mean, man, he's doing exactly what we're asking him to do.
06:39So I'm not worried at all.
06:41I thought he played pretty good.
06:42It's just, dude, that's the nature of this game sometimes.
06:46The ball doesn't bounce your way.
06:47And you just hang in there.
06:49Defense, we need a couple of takeaways.
06:51Keep giving us the ball back, which our defense did.
06:54And we'll work our way out of it.
06:56You're killing the fans by not playing Z'Darius Smith.
07:00What went into the decision to not play him?
07:03And then also, how much are you excited to see him on the field and be a part of this defense moving forward?
07:10Yeah, look, that's not an easy decision at all.
07:14But there's a couple of things.
07:18Number one, we're going in that game with seven wins.
07:21Number two, we're getting Paschal back, which we did.
07:24He played well, by the way.
07:26Number three, this guy has played a lot of football.
07:30He's already played a lot of football in the 2024 season.
07:34And I just felt like it was right to let's get him acclimated to what we do, how we do things around here,
07:39our defensive terminology, and give him a breather, you know,
07:43because it is a long season.
07:44I mean, we got 11 games left here, and we're going to need him for every one of those.
07:49And every time we get a little bit closer to the end, they get more critical.
07:53So I just felt like it was the right thing to do.
07:56And then, yes, we're excited to get him going.
08:00I think he's going to be an excellent addition for us.
08:03I think he brings, there again, a complimentary piece to our defense in that D-line.
08:10And I'm excited to see him play for us.
08:14I think we're all doing the math on 11 games.
08:16Lions head coach Dan Campbell joining us this morning.
08:18A lot to talk about from that football game.
08:20Felt like the run game didn't get going early.
08:23Was there when you needed it late?
08:24What was the adjustment, and how did you get it going?
08:29I'll say that again. I'm sorry.
08:30No, you're good.
08:31I said the run game.
08:32You finally got some success in the second half.
08:34What was it that finally got the ground game going?
08:38Let me say this.
08:39I thought Ben Johnson did a great job of staying patient with the run.
08:43You get in a game like that, it's not easy to just, you start getting antsy.
08:48You need points.
08:50Man, I thought that was excellent.
08:52So we leaned on the run game.
08:54We leaned on the offensive line.
08:56I thought we were much better in some of our combination blocks up front.
08:59We blocked it better.
09:02Then I just thought David and Gibbs really took that game over.
09:07They came on and it was a one-two punch.
09:10Gibbs almost broke about three of those.
09:13He is an inch away from taking it all the way to the house and really ignited us.
09:21Then once that happened, our guys really showed up.
09:26St. Brown makes big plays because now you're in the play action patch.
09:29Jamo made some big plays.
09:30Golf was making big throws.
09:32Our guys showed up in crunch time.
09:34Look, I'll say this again.
09:36I don't want to say he ever gets overshadowed, but a game like that,
09:42you come out and he made these critical catches at the end talking about St. Brown.
09:48St. played his ass off.
09:50He does every week.
09:51There are so many things that people don't even realize or see.
09:55He blocked from start to finish and mixed it up the whole freaking game.
10:00You could just see when it's time to go.
10:03I love St. because when it's time, we've got to start finding a way to win a game.
10:09Things aren't going your way.
10:10He doesn't press to the point of making mistakes.
10:12He presses in the right manner to help us win.
10:21We've got a group of guys like him.
10:23Our guys will find a way to win over there.
10:25You've talked about the conversations you've had about winning the division,
10:29getting into the tournament at the end of the season.
10:31You mentioned the 11 games.
10:33How much of a conversation or awareness is there about getting the one seed?
10:40Our guys know that.
10:41That was one of the things I talked about in training camp.
10:44Because you've got to work backwards.
10:47I've said it before.
10:48You can't just keep saying that the end game is the end game.
10:52We all know that.
10:53Now what do you've got to do?
10:54You've got to win your division.
10:55Preferably, you want to be the one.
10:59That's kind of where it goes.
11:02That whole focus is the division and getting that one seed.
11:06Because your odds go up.
11:07That only helps you.
11:08It doesn't mean you can't go all the way.
11:10If it's not that, that's fine.
11:12You take it as it comes.
11:14But that's what we're shooting for.
11:16Ultimately, that means you've got to play each week one at a time.
11:20And you've got to give it your full intention.
11:22It doesn't matter who you're playing.
11:24Let you go on this update on Sam Laporta, Taylor Decker,
11:28just as you gear up for this week.
11:30Yeah.
11:32Sam's day-to-day.
11:33Nothing's changed since yesterday.
11:35He really is questionable.
11:39I can't tell you where I would lean right now with him.
11:42Time will tell.
11:44Decker is questionable.
11:46I know he's doing better than he was last week.
11:50I feel pretty good about him.
11:52But there again, he's day-to-day.
11:54He's Lions Head Coach Dan Campbell.
11:56Appreciate some of your time.
11:57Thanks, Coach.
11:58Okay.
11:59Thanks.
12:00Take care, guys.