Allen Park — This Sunday evening’s matchup against the Green Bay Packers isn’t just another game for the Detroit Lions. And while many coaches prefer to take a business-as-usual approach, regardless of the circumstances, Lions coach Dan Campbell is choosing to emphasize the magnitude of the moment as he prepares his young roster for the franchise’s biggest game in the past six years.
“Man, you say what it is. You say the reality of it, and you say the reason why that’s where they want you at,” Campbell said, referring to the NFL selecting the Lions and Packers to be the league’s featured, primetime game on Sunday Night Football. “Then you say, ‘Hey man, we’ve got nothing to lose here.’ We go in and we’ve got nothing to lose. We cut it loose, and let’s have the time of our life, and let’s find a way to win this game.
“The bottom line is, I can just gauge the room and you can feel it,” Campbell continued. “We get to be on the big stage, man, and our guys are excited about that. And, one way or another, we get to play one more game. At the very least, we’re playing one more game, and it’s going to be on a great stage and everybody’s going to see it. Our guys, one way or another, are going to, I think we’re going to embrace it. I really do, no matter what happens.”
Potentially, based on what happens earlier in the day with the Seattle Seahawks, the Lions will be playing for a postseason berth. But, if the Seahawks emerge victorious against the Los Angeles Rams, the Lions still have the motivation of making sure the Packers don’t make the playoffs, either.
Regardless of the stakes, the Lions being featured by the league after starting the season 1-6 is a meaningful accomplishment for a team in the second year into a full rebuild. And a victory, regardless of whether it propels them to the team’s first playoff appearance since 2016 or merely keeps the Packers on the outside looking in for the first time in four years, can rubber-stamp the idea the Lions have legitimately turned a corner under Campbell.
“That’s why I want them to know exactly the magnitude of this game, because they need to know what this feels like, and they need to know what they’re walking into and, at the very least, you find out. You find and you figure out who can, you can’t, who’s young, who’s not, who’s mature. But, to me, that’s the way to approach this one, right now with where we’re at, let’s go.”
Campbell’s message is resonating with the players. For defensive back Will Harris, the coach’s passion and emotion this week is par for the course.
“I’ll say this — that’s real,” Harris said. “It doesn’t get much more real — especially from a head coach — than Dan Campbell. He’s going to give it to you real, which is why everyone in this building loves him. That’s something we can always expect is for him to be his 100% true, authentic self, no matter what.”
For others, like Jerry Jacobs, Campbell encouraging them to embrace the moment has the second-year cornerback more fired up than usual to suit up Sunday.
“Dan, the speech he gave us this morning, like every time he talked, you could tell he was fierce and ready,” Jacobs said. “And, we’re ready to go play with him. I know I can’t play him, but that just makes me want to play for him, play for the team, play for the organization, just being around him because I know he cares. He really means it when he says, ‘Let’s go into Green Bay and shock the world.’
“How he feels is how I feel,” Jacobs said. “I get the bubble guts, I get the chills just because of the way he’s coming with his words, how he’s saying it and how he’s feeling, I can feel that. Knowing I have a coach like that behind me, I’m rolling.”
jdrogers@detroitnews.com
Twitter: @Justin_Rogers