Bill Cowher: Detroit wasn’t ‘tough team,’ Campbell can change that
During Bill Cowher’s 15 years on the sidelines with the Pittsburgh Steelers, the Super Bowlwinning head man became synonymous with toughness. And, his Steelers teams reflected that in their style of play, seemingly each and every Sunday.
Meanwhile, the Lions, in Cowher’s opinion, have never been an NFL franchise that has been one of the toughest in the league.
Yet, by hiring Dan Campbell as head coach, the team appears to be attempting to make toughness a core component of its new identity -- something that Cowher can appreciate.
“I always looked at the Lions, to me, I never thought of them as being a tough team,” Cowher said from Super Bowl LV Wednesday. “I just never have. Does it go back to Barry Sanders, his way of running and his style, which was so uniquely special? But, Dan Campbell does give them a unique personality. He is going to sit there and talk about a culture that’s based on us being tough, ‘biting off kneecaps’ on the way getting back up. We’re not going to be defined by how many times we get knocked down, and if we keep
getting knocked down, we’ll start biting off your ankles.”
After three years of rarely being competitive with Matt Patricia on the sidelines, the above would be a welcomed change of pace for the organization and its fanbase.
Cowher, now a CBS Sports NFL analyst, added, “He’s (Campbell’s) going to go down fighting. That’s kind of who he is, right? I don’t think that’s a bad thing. Honestly, why not? It starts from the inside out. There’s going to be a degree of toughness that they’re going to play with, they’re going to have to practice with and that will be their approach.”
The hiring of Campbell
is part of a facelift for Detroit that has also already included the trade of longtime franchise quarterback Matthew Stafford to the Los Angeles Rams.
In return, the Lions not only received multiple draft picks, including two future first-rounders (in 2022 and 2023). But, they also acquired Rams quarterback Jared Goff, the No. 1 overall pick in the 2016 draft.
According to Cowher, the trade gives Goff an opportunity to turn around his career.
“It’s a chance to kind of have a second time around,” Cowher expressed. “And, I think they’re going to get back to running the football. I think with Dan Campbell, you saw at his first press conference, I think there’s no doubt his personality (is) a little bit different than Matt Patricia.
So, they needed to get a different face in the building to maybe light a little fire. And to establish a little bit of uniqueness to who you are, which is going to be a degree of toughness.”
If Cowher is even remotely accurate about what Campbell is going to bring to the table as a head man, Detroit fans should be in store for a new, tougher brand of football in the Motor City in 2021.
And considering the downtrodden state the franchise has recently been in, there’s certainly nothing wrong with the organization establishing a new identity with Campbell at the helm.