Lions News

[Sanders Fan]

If he coached the Lions for ten years, he would only be 55 and still have plenty of time to coach his alma mater.

[jaadam4]

So allegedly, Texas A&M called Dan Campbell to inquire about his interest in coaching at his alma mater.

I'm mildly curious how long he let him pitch before he turned them down.

Even though MCDC would never leave right now with what their building it’s prob an interesting thought. They probably offered him a lifetime contract with a ton of guaranteed money.

And not that it would happen but if it did at least we could retain Ben Johnson

[dpatnod]

Even though MCDC would never leave right now with what their building it’s prob an interesting thought. They probably offered him a lifetime contract with a ton of guaranteed money.

And not that it would happen but if it did at least we could retain Ben Johnson

Until he opens 0-3 and we call for his head..... leaving us with HC..... Glenn?????

No way Sheila would let the Campbell/Holmes team be split up at this point if she is sane. But they might have to give MCDC a bump in pay.

[whatever_gong82]

Niyo: Lions in the driver’s seat, but need to keep pedal to the metal



John Niyo
The Detroit News



Allen Park — Dan Campbell has been down this road before, so he knows what it takes to get from here to there.

And, yes, he also knows this is a route the Lions haven’t successfully navigated in a long, long time.



It has been 30 years since Detroit won a division title to earn a home playoff game. That was back when the NFC North was still called the NFC Central, and when Barry Sanders was still an All-Pro running back for the Lions instead of a brand ambassador. Four current NFL franchises didn’t even exist then, and neither did Jared Goff, who was born 10 months after that fateful day in January 1994, when Brett Favre scrambled to his left, turned to his right and then heaved that pass to Sterling Sharpe all alone in the end zone at the Silverdome.



But, this is where the Lions finally find themselves once again. Just past the midseason mark of the 2023 regular season, they're in the driver’s seat in the NFC North, with miles of open road in front of them.

How far can they go?



"As far as we'd like,” Goff said Sunday, after he and the Lions had won a wild 41-38 shootout with the Chargers in Los Angeles.

But, the Lions' quarterback was quick to add, there’s “a lot of work ahead of us.”



“It's not like we can look toward what January looks like,” Goff said. “We can't do that. We have to keep winning.”

That’s the message Campbell will keep driving home in the days and weeks ahead. And the Lions’ head coach will be speaking from experience, just as he was Wednesday when he was asked about a division race that hasn’t turned into the runaway some of us thought it might.

Dan Campbell after another Detroit Lions win.jpg

The Lions are off to a 7-2 start this season, only a game behind Philadelphia for the best record in the NFL. Yet they’re only 1½ games ahead of the Minnesota Vikings, the defending NFC North champs who’ve won five in a row after a 1-3 start.

“I think it’s always good to have somebody (chasing you),” Campbell said. “We’re all about competition, and I’ve said it before: We’ve got to assume (the Vikings) are not going to lose until we see them again. … They keep getting better and we’ve got to keep winning. We just have to. We can’t worry about them until the time shows up, but, I mean, let’s go.”



So, here we go, then, into what feels like the unknown in this town. Lions fans really haven’t experienced a division title chase since 2016, the last time this franchise made the playoffs, backing in as a wild-card team with three straight losses. And while last year’s second-half charge gave the young core of this roster a taste of what’s in store, this time around, it is different.

“Because all the outside noise is really on our side and hyping us up,” right tackle Penei Sewell said. “But I don’t think we feed into that as much as you guys do. We’ve just got to focus on ourselves and not look too far ahead. When people do that, they get themselves in trouble.”



The schedule does feel like a bit of a trap. The Lions might not face a team with a winning record for another month. But, they will play two divisional games in the next seven days, facing Chicago at Ford Field on Sunday before hosting Green Bay on Thanksgiving. Win those two and they’ll be all but assured of an NFC wild-card berth, frankly.

But the division title — and the home-field advantage that comes with it — may take a while longer to decide, because the Vikings still have two games left with the Lions and only one other remaining opponent (Cincinnati) that currently boasts a winning record.



Maybe this is a case where objects in the mirror are closer than they appear. But Minnesota seems to have found a spark in quarterback Joshua Dobbs, an emergency trade-deadline pickup who has won the last two games in the wake of Kirk Cousins’ season-ending Achilles tear. And as soon as this week, perhaps, the Vikings will get back All-Pro receiver Justin Jefferson, who has been sidelined by a hamstring injury since early October.

Regardless, Campbell is bracing his team for any and all possibilities. And as he talked Wednesday before practice, he harkened back to the start of his own NFL playing career. It was Campbell’s second season as a pro in 2000, and his New York Giants were off to a similar start as these Lions. But they simply couldn’t shake Philadelphia in the NFC East race.



“We went 12-4 that year,” Campbell said. “And we’d win, they’d win, we’d win, they’d win, we’d win and they’d win. I mean, it was just back and forth. It was just nonstop.”

That season, the Giants beat the Eagles twice in the regular season, but both those games came before November. The Lions won’t face the Vikings for the first time until a Christmas Eve game at Minnesota, and they’ll see them again in the regular-season finale in Detroit.



“So, it's going to come down to playing those games,” said Campbell, whose 2000 Giants team went on to beat the Eagles in the playoffs, too, and made it to the Super Bowl. “You’ve got to keep winning, and then when the time comes and you play that opponent, man, you’ve got to win those games.”

Until then, though, they’ve got to win as many as they can, starting with these next two in the division. Detroit has won six straight NFC North games dating to last September’s crushing last-minute loss at Minnesota, and that streak is tied for the franchise’s longest in the division in the Super Bowl era. (The Lions also won their last six NFC Central games in 1995.)



“Look, if you aspire to win the division, you have to win your division games — it's as simple as that,” said Campbell, who won four straight NFC South titles as an assistant in New Orleans before taking the Lions' job. “That’s the bottom line.”

And this, then, is the starting line. We’re already halfway through this season, but the race really is just beginning.

[whatever_gong82]

Detroit Lions' Jonah Jackson dealing with new injury; Donovan Peoples-Jones' debut coming?


Dave Birkett
Detroit Free Press



Detroit Lions left guard Jonah Jackson is dealing with a new injury.

Jackson, who played all 66 offensive snaps in his return from a high ankle sprain last week, missed practice Wednesday with wrist and ankle injuries.



Jackson helped key the Lions' 200-yard rushing day in a 41-38 win over the Los Angeles Chargers. He told the Free Press after the game he felt good in his return after sitting out three games.

"It’s just good to get back out there, get moving with the guys," he said. "Being back with the boys, I was tired of being at home watching this. I love being at home with my daughter, don’t get me wrong, but it’s better on the field."

Jonah Jackson_6-6-2023.jpg

Defensive tackle Isaiah Buggs also did not practice because of an illness, and safety Ifeatu Melifonwu (hand), defensive tackle Levi Onwuzurike (hip) were limited.

Onwuzurike did not play against the Chargers.


Wide receiver Donovan Peoples-Jones, who sat out the Chargers games with a rib injury after coming over to the Lions in a trade with the Cleveland Browns, was a full participant in practice. He could make his Lions debut Sunday against the Chicago Bears.

"He’s already fit in," Lions receivers coach Antwaan Randle El said. "He’s good. He gets it and understands ball from that standpoint, now it’s just a matter of getting him reps, walk-through reps and mental reps with him being on the side and watching, and even this week just getting him reps in the actual practice. So it’s just a matter of getting those things done and getting them done that he understands it."


Contact Dave Birkett at dbirkett@freepress.com. Follow him on Twitter @davebirkett.

[jaadam4]

Until he opens 0-3 and we call for his head..... leaving us with HC..... Glenn?????

No way Sheila would let the Campbell/Holmes team be split up at this point if she is sane. But they might have to give MCDC a bump in pay.

MCDC isn’t leaving right now. They’ve built something special.


And I don’t think Ben Johnson will be failing as a HC.

[jaadam4]

Sucks about J Jackson’s injury but Colby Sorsdal played well
his last time out. Let Jackson get healthy again because the OL mauls when he plays

[whatever_gong82]

[ghandi]

Sucks about J Jackson’s injury but Colby Sorsdal played well
his last time out. Let Jackson get healthy again because the OL mauls when he plays

Could the team let Jonah Jackson walk after the season? He is due for a pretty good pay day isnt he? We are wondering how they are going to pay all these guys in the next couple of years. They are going to have to let some of them go to free agency.

[dpatnod]

MCDC isn’t leaving right now. They’ve built something special.


And I don’t think Ben Johnson will be failing as a HC.

Are you talking about Assistant Regional Head Coach Ben Johnson?

[jaadam4]

Could the team let Jonah Jackson walk after the season? He is due for a pretty good pay day isnt he? We are wondering how they are going to pay all these guys in the next couple of years. They are going to have to let some of them go to free agency.

It’s a tough call. Goff is going to get an extension soon. He’s getting his money and deservingly so. The key variable for Lions offensive success is that they need that dominating OL for both the running and passing game. Keeping Goff clean and allowing the Lions to run the ball the way they have will determine how far they’ll go. Having a dominating run game allows Goff to play to one of his best attributes as a QB. The play action.

The other thing to take into account is that while Glasgow has been one of the best signings but he’s only on a 1 year deal. We might have to pony up there too. Not to the extent Jackson would command but far more than the 2.5 mil he’s making now. Sorsdal
can possibly build into that starting OG but they better be sure

I was hoping they were going to draft OCyrus Torrence in the last draft. He’s going to be a good OG for many years to come.

[jaadam4]

Are you talking about Assistant Regional Head Coach Ben Johnson?

lol

such a great show

[froot loops]

They are not letting Jackson walk.

[jaadam4]

They are not letting Jackson walk.

You might be right. It’s a different OL with him there. If they drafted Torrence they prob could have

[Cody_Russell]

The good news there is Jonah Jackson is the only player from the 2020 Lions class that deserves a 2nd contract (thanks, Bob Quinn…).
Jackson likely played or injured he way out of earning a Chris Lindstrom (Falcons) or Elgton Jenkins (Packers)-like top tier contract extension. Rather we’re probably looking at something similar to Cesar Ruiz AT MOST. $44M/ 4 years to have him ranked as the 6th highest paid guard at the time.

I don’t know if the Lions will have to start making hard decisions when it comes to Jackson. Such as comparing his financial impact to the incoming 2021 class + Goff contracts. If that’s the case, I would clearly have Jackson as 5th most important on the pecking order. Weighing position value and production on the field. Goff #1, Sewell #2, St. Brown #3, McNeill #4, and Jackson #5. With Goff, Sewell, and St. Brown being near equal slam dunk must extend players.