Detroit Lions' Dan Campbell: 'We may be Rich Strike' in 2022 NFL season
Peter King likes what he sees from coach Dan Campbell and the Detroit Lions.
King, a three time National Sportswriter of the Year, interviewed Campbell and Lions general manager Brad Holmes for his NBC Sports' Monday column about the team's rebuild. King notes the franchise, one that hasn't won a playoff game since the 1991 season, has been "mostly rancid for generations," but believes Detroit faithful should enter the 2022 season and beyond with high hopes.
King recapped the Lions' first-round selections of Aidan Hutchinson and Jameson Williams.
"On New Year’s Day, Hutchinson and Williams were lock top-10 picks," King wrote. "Maybe top-five. The Lions got them second and 12th overall, with the obvious asterisk on Williams, and they’re euphoric.”
Hutchinson, a former Michigan defensive end, finished as the Heisman Trophy runner-up last season, marking only the third time in the award's history a defensive player has placed second. While helping lead the Wolverines to the College Football Playoff, the Dearborn Divine Child product tallied 62 tackles, 14 sacks and two forced fumbles.
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Williams arrived in a big trade by way of Alabama, where his spectacular lone season with the Crimson Tide ended with a torn ACL in the national championship game. Prior to his injury, Williams had 79 catches for 1,572 yards, the third-most in Alabama program history. Campbell told reporters in June he doesn't expect Williams to join the Lions for offseason training until later this summer.
"I had Jameson in his own box," Holmes told King. "You want to be as sure as possible with first-round players, of course, and I was absolutely convinced on Jameson… the speed, how fluid he was, how confident he played.”
The arrival of Hutchinson and Williams has added to Detroit's unyielding team mentality, King wrote. Despite the Lions' total of just 11 wins over the past three years, King likes the direction the franchise is heading in, and has a hunch the players do, too.
And that's because of Campbell, King wrote. Entering his second season as head coach, Campbell has his team believing they could turn things around at any time. King will be surprised if Detroit isn't close to .500 this year.
Campbell said he sees a lot of similarities between his squad and Rich Strike, the winning horse of the 2022 Kentucky Derby that entered the race with 80-1 odds.
"We kind of feel like we may be Rich Strike here," Campbell told King. "I think that’s how we all feel. That’s how we all talk. That’s how we all think. There’s nothing fake about it.”
To King, the "Dan Campbell Way" resulted in the team's fight to end last season 3-3, a newfound respect for Campbell, and a complete buy-in from the players for this season — feats King wrote he "did not see" from the Matt Patricia-led Lions.
"People outside the building can’t see it, obviously,” Lions quarterback Jared Goff told King. “But we have a plan, and we’re all-in. People see some of what Dan says, and that’s great. But I can tell you — Dan knows what the hell he’s talking about, and he’s got the respect of that (locker) room.”
Regardless of if the Lions' 2022 campaign has a similar ending to Rich Strike's Kentucky Derby, King notes the team will a "fascinating watch" going forward.
Chandler Engelbrecht is a reporting intern at The Detroit Free Press and can be reached at CEngelbrecht@freepress.com. Follow him on Twitter @ctengelbrecht.
This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Detroit Lions' Dan Campbell: 'We may be Rich Strike' in NFL
