What this says about Dan Campbell
When evaluating Campbell’s decisions, we often confine it to in-game management.
Should the Lions kick a field goal or go for it on fourth down?
But I contend, in the bigger picture, the most important decision Campbell has made is who he has hired for his staff.
When Campbell took over, he hired Anthony Lynn to be the offensive coordinator.
OK, so that didn’t exactly work out, and Campbell quickly moved on from it.
Give him credit for cutting bait and realizing it wasn’t working.
Then, Campbell made a rather bold decision to promote Johnson, who was a tight ends coach, as the new OC.
This was insanely risky. Johnson had never been a coordinator. He started out as a graduate assistant at Boston College in 2009 and he climbed to assistant wide receivers coach with the Dolphins in 2016-17. Not the WR coach. The assistant to the WR coach.
After getting the wide receivers coach job in Miami, he jumped to the Lions, first as a quality control coach, and then the tight ends coach before eventually taking over the passing game.
But after Campbell got rid of Lynn after the 2021, the head coach recognized talent and gave the then-35-year-old the keys to the Ferrari.
And Johnson has proved to be an extremely talented offensive coordinator.
More than that, he has connected with Jared Goff and gotten him to improve.
“Ben’s an incredible play-caller,” Fipp said. “He sees the game with great vision and perspective.”
Glenn took a different route.
He has more than a quarter century of experience in the NFL, first as a first-round draft pick in 1994 and a 14-year playing career. Campbell and Glenn had coached together in New Orleans for five seasons.
Campbell gave Glenn a far different challenge: We are gonna build up our offense, throwing most of our resources into scoring points, and I’m gonna trust you to coach up this defense. To make some lemonade out of lemons. We are just gonna try to outscore everybody.
But it has worked.
And the rest of the NFL has noticed.
Glenn doesn’t have a great defense — the Lions haven’t committed pumped enough resources into the defense to make it elite — but he certainly has respect from his players.
The NFL Players Association polled more than 1,600 players, asking them to rank coordinators on a 1-10 scale, and Glenn finished in first among defensive coordinators in the league.
This says so much about the way he communicates, how he teaches, the way he treats players, the relationships he has built, how he develops them, how he leads men and how he motivates them — the things that make a great head coach.
“AG’s a great motivator and leader and enjoyable to be around,” Fipp said of Glenn. “I think, as a coach, for me, you’re trying to learn from everybody that you’re around. And I’ve learned an awful lot from both those guys.”
Is it time to panic?
So what happens if one or both leave? What if they each take a Lions assistant with them, which wouldn’t be unusual?
Campbell has proved that he can build a staff. He can identify the qualities that make a good coach, not to mention a good coordinator.
He has proved that he can groom a young coach and promote him to coordinator, like he did with Johnson.
Maybe, Campbell could find replacements on staff.
Maybe, they would come from the outside the Allen Park facility.
But at this stage, one thing is clear about Campbell: This guy knows how to build a coaching staff.
He has built up some serious street cred. Here’s the King James version if both guys leave: Thou shalt trust in Dan to find replacements.
Contact Jeff Seidel: jseidel@freepress.com. Follow him on Twitter @seideljeff.