Allen Park — Detroit Lions coach Dan Campbell is coming from an organization that likes to take training camp on the road.
During Sean Payton’s tenure as the New Orleans Saints head coach, the team has held camps in Mississippi, California and most recently at The Greenbrier in White Sulphur Springs, West Virginia.
Campbell, in his first year with the Lions, isn’t ready to follow suit, preferring to keep operations at the team’s practice facility in Allen Park.
“We will stay here,” Campbell said. “My thoughts right now are that I would rather stay here. This is our home base and this is where we get our work done. Not that that won’t change over the years, but right now, that’s what we’ll do.”
Obviously, Campbell is leaving the door open to changing it up down the road. The Lions last help camp on the road in 2001, ending a five-year stint at Saginaw Valley State.
In addition to working in Allen Park for the 20th consecutive year, the Lions won’t conduct any joint practices with another team, either here or on the road, ahead of the 2021 season.
That was due to poor timing, more than a lack of effort, according to Campbell.
“I actually did reach out to some coaches, and I’ll be honest with you, I got in on it a little bit late,” he said. “A number of the coaches that I called had already had things set up. So, we struck out on that. I think it’ll probably be just us. We’ll be competing against each other for those four weeks of camp.”
The Lions held joint practices with the New England Patriots and Houston Texans in 2019, and in 2018 held joint practices with the then-Oakland Raiders and New York Giants.
The Lions did not hold joint practices with another team last season, following NFL guidelines during the COVID-19 pandemic.
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