It’s a weird situation for Lions fans of just about any age. Offseason hype from both local and national media is not something we’re accustomed to around the Lions.
This year is different. The Lions are the current betting favorites to win the NFC North, which would represent the team’s first-ever division title since the NFL switched to eight divisions over 20 years ago.
It changes the vibe around the team. However, head coach Dan Campbell doesn’t want his squad to put the cart ahead of the horse. Campbell cautioned against believing the hype in May during his recent press conference at Detroit’s OTAs.
“Yeah, look we don’t – we’re not into the hype,” Campbell declared. “Like right now, everything is about the work, and it will be when we get into training camp. Goes back to what I said, we’ve got a brand new team that we’ve got to build from the ground up again. Yeah, we’ve got a foundation, but yeah man, we’ve got to get the chemistry right; we’ve got a lot of new faces.
And all of that other stuff won’t matter if we don’t put the work back in, so that, to me, is the focus. I mean, we can’t worry about what everybody else says. Just like last year, we can’t worry about — when you lose five in a row that you’re back in the dumpers again because if you do that, then you won’t win another game now.
Campbell nicely summed up his message to his talented but young team,
“And it’s the same thing here. If we’re going to really buy into that and not put the work in again, no, we’ll get our (expletive) kicked, so, that’s not what we’re going to do.”
