Allen Park — The Lions do find themselves at a new station in life these days.
But, as Dan Campbell reminded everyone Sunday, life is the train, not the station.
And a year after the Lions’ head coach famously quoted Metallica to kick off a season of “Hard Knocks” in Detroit, telling his players, “If you see a (expletive) light, it’s just a freight train,” he was singing a similar tune as his team hit the practice field to begin training camp.
Campbell is well aware of the heightened expectations surrounding these Lions, who won eight of their final 10 games last season to post their first winning record since 2017 and — after knocking Green Bay out of the playoffs last winter with a dramatic Week 18 statement at Lambeau Field — enter the 2023 campaign as odds-on favorites to win the NFC North.
“But I think it’s always the thing that’s going to worry you, is the hype train,” said Campbell, entering his third season in Detroit. “I mean, this thing has just taken off, and it’s out of control right now.”
Careening, at least. The Lions haven’t won a division title in 30 years, yet after sending Aaron Rodgers packing to New York and with plenty of questions surrounding the Vikings — the reigning kings of the North — they’re not just a fashionable pick to finally claim the throne. Some national pundits are even tapping the Lions — yes, the Lions — as a darkhorse pick to make a Super Bowl run.
“I mean, it’s hard not to see it,” shrugged Aidan Hutchinson, the Lions’ second-year edge rusher who is coming off an impressive rookie debut. “We’ve got the TVs on in there, and it pops up. You see it. And I think it’s smart if a lot of our guys stay (away from) it because it can get to your head a little bit.”
A little bit can go a long way, too, which is why Campbell is busy sounding the horn right now, making sure the tracks are clear.
“If we have some guys that are deviating a bit or they think they’ve arrived and they haven’t, you call them out on it,” Campbell said. “I think as long as we do that as coaches and players, we’ll be fine. But if we all just turn a blind eye and think. ‘All right, this is great; we’ll be this.’ … that’s not true.”
Honestly, though, there are few, if any, signs of that right now in Allen Park. Campbell is confident in the young core of players that he and general manager Brad Holmes have brought in here, both in terms of talent and character. Players like Hutchinson, Amon-Ra St. Brown, Penei Sewell and Alim McNeill all love the game and the grind, and it shows.
And though the Lions feel emboldened by some of the veteran free-agent additions on defense, particularly in the secondary, they also seem determined not to let go of that chip they carried through an 0-10-1 start in Campbell’s first season — or the 1-6 start a year ago.
“I don’t think we’ll ever be the team that will embody that arrogant mindset of not putting the work in,” Hutchinson said. “Because we haven’t won a playoff game in, what, 30 years? It’s been so long. So, I don’t think we’ll ever be that team that stops putting their foot on the gas, stops having that underdog mentality.”
As quarterback Jared Goff, one of the few Lions who actually has played in a Super Bowl, said with a wry smile Sunday, “It’s funny to me that you go 9-8, you don’t make the playoffs and now you’re all of a sudden a favorite. We’ve got good players. We’ve got good coaches. We’ve got a good team. But we haven’t done anything yet, and we have a lot of work to do.”
That work began again in earnest Sunday, as the Lions started the “acclimation” phase of training camp, going through a crisp, 90-minute workout in Allen Park. They won’t put on shoulder pads until later this week, and the first preseason game isn’t until Aug. 11. But Campbell isn’t about to let this group get behind schedule, especially since he knows the bulk of the starters’ work will come in joint practices with the Giants and Jaguars prior to Detroit’s first two exhibition games.
“We do have enough time,” Campbell said, “but we don’t have enough time to waste. We’re in a race here.”
The good news is they all seem to know where to line up, and, for the most part, the various routes they’ll be taking to get this team where it wants to go. There are 33 players in camp who weren’t here a year ago — that’s the norm in today’s NFL, mind you — but among the Lions’ projected starters, there’s only a handful of new faces. And since Campbell has all three of his coordinators back this season, that continuity allows the Lions to hit the ground running.
“Just because you’re comfortable with the play-calling, with where the coaches want you to be, understanding certain things,” said St. Brown, whose 106 catches last season helped fuel what was a top-five offense in the NFL. “So at this point, you’re kind of graduated from where you were, into more complex, little details. … I think it’s gonna help us take that next step.”
That next step is the hardest to make, everyone knows. And for Lions fans, it requires a huge leap of faith to believe this is the year all that hope finally lives up to the hype, starting with that prime-time opener in Kansas City against the defending Super Bowl champs.
But, if you believe in Campbell, the chief engineer of this thing, then you might as well hop on board, just like the players have.
“They believe in the message, they believe in the work, so you’re going to have a level of confidence,” said Campbell, before sounding the horn one more time as it left the station Sunday. “But you have to be careful. If that’s all you buy into, is the talk and everything else that you read, and you forget the work, then it’s all for nothing.”
john.niyo@detroitnews.com
Twitter: @john.niyo