Milwaukee Journal Sentinel - Packer Plus
Campbell’s bet on himself has paid off
Green Bay — By the time De’Vondre Campbell visited the Green Bay Packers as a free agent last summer, he was done being recruited.
Campbell was over the empty promises that accompany the NFL. Tired of hearing how a team planned to use him in its defense, only to experience something entirely different. Early in his career, Campbell felt he was spread too thin, limited by his versatility. With the Atlanta Falcons, and then the Arizona Cardinals, Campbell would be asked to play three, four positions in a game.
It led to an unflattering label. Campbell still rolls his eyes remembering how many people called him an “average player” through his first five seasons. No, Campbell insists, he was never average.
Instead, he felt miscast.
“I’ve always felt like I’ve been a great player,” Campbell said, “but opportunity is everything.”
A year ago, Campbell was determined to get his opportunity. He dragged his free agency into the summer not because teams were uninterested in signing him – “I had several offers that I turned down,” he said – but because he was done settling. To Campbell, the template for success looked a certain way. He would no longer overextend himself playing multiple positions.
Campbell decided to recruit his next team, not waste time with overtures that didn’t fit his plan. He shared his expectations with any team interested in signing him.
“Yeah, I told them,” Campbell said. “I was like, the only way I will come is if you let me do this, and only this. I don’t want to play Sam, Mike and Will. Yes, I can guard running backs and tight ends and wide receivers, but I don’t want to do it all day. I did that for four years, five years. The tape is there. But that’s not what I want to do.
“I want to be a Mike, and I want to be just a Mike.”
When the Packers agreed to letting
him be a middle linebacker, Campbell’s familiarity with coach Matt LaFleur and defensive coordinator Joe Barry helped ease any uncertainty they were simply selling him what he wanted to hear.
LaFleur was the Falcons’ quarterbacks coach when the team picked Campbell in the fourth round of the 2016 draft. They grew close during his rookie season. “I used to talk to him every day,” Campbell said. He knew Barry through Los Angeles Chargers coach Brandon Staley, who recruited Campbell out of Cypress Lake High in Florida. Staley was the Los Angeles Rams’ defensive coordinator in 2020, when Barry coached linebackers.
The Packers took a similar leap of faith with Campbell. The film from his early career showed the same player. He was a coverage linebacker, able to roam the field with his long, wiry frame. The concern, at a lean 6-3, 232 pounds, was whether Campbell was durable enough to consistently play the run. He hadn’t shown much physicality in the box, a trait that still matters even in a quarterback-driven league.
Campbell wasn’t accepting anything less than the full-time Mike linebacker position. By last season, he’d heard from enough peers around the league, all telling him the same thing. If he stayed at middle linebacker, he’d be a top 10, maybe top five player at the position.
“I was playing so many different positions,” Campbell said, “to the point where people were like, ‘Well, we don’t know what he’s good at, because he’s doing this, this and this. And, yeah, he’s good at it, but we haven’t seen him do one thing on a consistent basis.’ And that’s what I was hearing. So I wanted to kind of (dispel) that rumor that, you know, ‘He’s just an average player.’ No, I know I’m great, and I’ve always felt like that. But like I said, opportunity is always everything. And I never had the opportunity to consistently showcase it.”
Campbell proved last season he could be one of the NFL’s top middle linebackers. He was a playmaker in the center of the Packers’ defense, generating five turnover plays. He was reliable against the run, missing only five tackles in 158 chances. At season’s end, Campbell was selected first-team AllPro alongside Indianapolis’ Darius Leonard and Dallas’ Micah Parsons.
The Packers rewarded him with a five-year, $50 million contract in March. His $10 million annual salary tied him with Bobby Wagner and Eric Kendricks as the 11th-highest-paid inside linebacker in the league.
It solidified what teammates quickly learned last fall, that Campbell was a foundational piece for a Super Bowl contender.
Campbell didn’t start at the top last offseason. He regularly rotated with the second-team defense when training camp opened. Preston Smith, who missed the end of the team’s offseason program because of COVID-19, didn’t know what to expect from Campbell when camp began. At that point, he’d only seen the film.
“You would see this guy with long dreads flying around, making plays,” Smith said. “You’d be, ‘Who is this guy?’ I don’t know him personally, but he looks like he’s always around the ball, and he’s always in position to make plays for the team. I just felt like after we got to camp, and I seen him play with my own eyes live, I was like, ‘Man, this guy is a big asset for us.’ And I felt before the season, he was going to have a big season.”
The $50 million extension was a pivot in how the Packers valuate inside linebackers. The team has long followed much of the NFL, devaluing the position. Campbell played for just $2 million last season, willing to bet on himself in a one-year deal. Now the Packers have doubled down, seeing the impact of an All-Pro linebacker in the middle of their defense.
Around Campbell, general manager Brian Gutekunst spent the spring fortifying the defense. The Packers resigned Smith and cornerback Rasul Douglas. They added veteran defensive lineman Jarran Reed. A unit that finished ninth in yards and 13th in points allowed, and saved their best for late last season, believes it will be even better this fall.
“The bottom line,” Campbell said, “is the last time we took the field as a defense, we gave up six points. So that’s just the standard that we have from here on out.”
The standard starts with Campbell. He’s the lone All-Pro on the Packers’ defense. If there was any thought success would thaw the mountain-sized chip on his shoulders, he quickly erased that concern.
Asked how he celebrated his extension, a milestone payday that financially sets up his family for life, Campbell said he didn’t. Instead, he dropped the F word.
Campbell is driven to show last season was no fluke.
“It always drives me,” Campbell said. “It’s kind of the story of my career. People have these thoughts, or whatever it may be. None of it be true, but that’s just the business. So I deal with it as it comes.”