Long before he “Restored the Roar” at long last to the Detroit Lions, Motor City Dan Campbell was just a fun-loving backup tight end for the New York Giants.
“I can remember going to biker bars in New York City with him and [his wife] Holly and my wife Brill and a whole group of people, and just having a helluva time,” NBC’s Jason Garrett told Serby Says. “He always told great stories, did great imitations, and just a great guy to hang out with. On a Monday night we’d go watch ‘Monday Night Football,’ there’d be 12 of us. He knew these biker bars in the city. I didn’t know they existed in the city.”
Garrett was the Giants’ backup quarterback to Kerry Collins from 2000-03, including the Super Bowl XXXV run.
“I always remember there was like kind of this whole Hulk Hogan — I don’t know if it was specifically Hulk Hogan,” Garrett said, “but it was kind of this championship wrestling voice that he would go into sometimes.”
Campbell can still make everyone laugh, but he has made sure that no one is laughing at the Lions anymore. Garrett recalls sitting down with Campbell before the start of the season and coming away impressed with who the Lions were and what they were becoming.
“‘When you’re building this team, it seems to me that you’re building it in your likeness,’” Garrett told Campbell. “And he said, ‘Yeah, we want smart, tough guys who love ball who want to be part of a team.’ And then at the end of it he said, ‘And maybe guys who are more talented than I was.’ Just typical Dan, self-deprecating.
“He’s been around football enough as a player, as a coach, he knows the best players he was around, the best teams he was around, and they’ve tried to recreate that. He and [general manager] Brad Holmes are hip to hip in their vision for that team, and the ownership, Sheila Ford [Hamp], she’s been amazing in supporting their vision.”
Former Giants GM Ernie Accorsi, in need of a blocking tight end, drafted Campbell in the third round out of Texas A&M in 1999.
“He coaches the way he played,” Accorsi told Serby Says. “I’ve always been a believer that ‘sound’ wins. And they’re sound. But he’s a strong leader. He’s a guy if you had to hit a beach, you want him with you.”
And the Dan Campbell Lions are now a team that if you had to storm a beach, you want them with you.
“There’s a thing in football called the last shove,” Garrett said, “and let the guy know that, ‘Hey, I’m in charge of this thing.’ I think Campbell was probably known for some last shoves in his day.”
Campbell caught just eight passes as a rookie, three for touchdowns.
“He used to catch these goal-line touchdown passes, that’s my memory,” Garrett said. “He was the ultimate lunch-pail player, and I say that as a compliment.”
Accorsi drafted tight end Jeremy Shockey in the first round in 2002.
“[Shockey] was an elite athlete getting down the field and running vertical routes and all of that, he was a more dynamic player, but Dan was this pro, the steady, consistent, versatile guy who was smart, tough and made your team better,” Garrett said. “And everybody loved him.”
Accorsi signed left guard Rich Seubert as an undrafted free agent in 2001. Seubert is now the head coach at Watchung Hills Regional High School in Warren, N.J., and is a Giants and Lions fan because of Campbell.
“I think he coaches the way he plays,” Seubert told Serby Says, “a tough son of a bitch.
“He was a tackle playing tight end, he wasn’t a tight end catching balls, right? He was a blocking tight end — hand in the dirt, come off the ball, hit you in the face and smile about it. Old-school throwback slash tight end. He wasn’t afraid to get his nose dirty, and he just worked his ass off. He’s what you wanted to have as a teammate.”
He’s what the Lions and the city of Detroit wanted to have as a head coach.
The Lions are one of 12 teams that have never won a Super Bowl. They haven’t won a playoff game since 1991. For too long, Lions fans have endured S.O.L. ignominy: Same Old Lions.
Campbell has learned invaluable lessons from the likes of Sean Payton and Bill Parcells, and former Giants tight end coaches Mike Pope and Tony Sparano, and they have molded him into a servant leader who is big on violence on the field and empathy and comparability off it, and has galvanized a belated-down franchise and beaten-down town.
He never flinched during a 3-13-1 rookie 2021 season and now has won 12 of his past 15 games. He vowed at his introductory press conference that his team would adopt the identity of the city.
“This city’s been down, and it found a way to get up,” Campbell said. Then came Campbell’s mmm, mmm good quote: “We’re gonna kick you in the teeth, and when you punch us back, we’re gonna smile at you, and when you knock us down, we’re gonna get up. And on the way up, we’re gonna bite a kneecap off, and we’re gonna stand up, and then it’s gonna take two more shots to knock us down. Then on the way up, we’re gonna take your other kneecap, and we’re gonna get up and then it’s gonna take three shots to get us down, and when we do, we’re gonna take another hunk out of you. Before long, we’re gonna be the last one standing.”
If there was a Detroit Lion who wasn’t ready to run through a wall right then and there, no one could find him.
“I think we all love guys like that,” Seubert said. “He pretty much says what every coach is thinking, but he’s not afraid to say it. You want guys that are nasty, right? Even through the whistles you want guys to play football to the max. Yeah, bite their kneecaps and they get up, bite the other kneecap right? That’s the way we grew up playing back in the backyard when we were 7 years old playing tackle football.”
Campbell hired a superior staff and emboldened quarterback Jared Goff after the blockbuster trade of Matthew Stafford to the Rams. He and Holmes presided over what appears to be an impactful 2023 draft on the heels of selecting star defensive end Aidan Hutchinson with the second-overall pick in 2022.
“He can’t be stopped,” nose tackle Liam McNeill told Serby Says. “And there’s not anyone in the country that can stop him, I promise you. His presence, his aura on the field is just different. When he’s out there he’s a madman, he’s a force.”
In other words, Hutchinson is just another Lion who plays lionhearted for the Lion King.
“It doesn’t matter when, where, what, it’s just like we’re here to handle business, we’re not gonna let you or the man in front of me beat me,” McNeill said.
After the Lions chose running back Jahmyr Gibbs with the 12th-overall pick in 2023, rookie linebacker Jack Campbell (no relation) was the Lions’ second first-round pick.
“He’s just got rookie beside his name, but he’s not a rookie,” McNeill said.
Gibbs, who will miss the game Sunday against the Buccaneers, is dynamic, but is the change-of-pace back for free-agent addition David Montgomery.
“David was one of them backs that you know you have to wrap up, you know you have to put a shoulder into,” McNeill said. “That’s a dude right there toting the ball.”
McNeill, emerging as a force in his third season, loves how chill Campbell is away from the field.
“You wouldn’t even know Coach Campbell’s a football coach if you talked to him off the field,” McNeill said. “He’s always the same guy every day, that’s why we respect him, that’s what we like about him.”
Dan Campbell, the pride of Glen Rose, Texas.
“I played in Dallas before coming to the Giants, so knew Texas, knew his area,” Garrett said. “And in fact, when I was playing — we always laughed about it — he was in high school, and there’s this thing called the Glen Rose Optimus Club. I guess I went down there and made a talk to the kids. He was one of the kids before he went to A&M.”
McNeill was asked what the city of Detroit would be like if the Lions were to win a Super Bowl.
“This city,” he said, “will turn upside down if we won a Super Bowl.”
It is Dan Campbell turning it upside down.