No one is laughing at Dan Campbell’s Lions anymore

DETROIT -- On this day three years ago, Dan Campbell stood in front of a laptop and introduced himself to the world. The Lions were still in Covid protocols back then, and had their new head coach jump on a video call with reporters. He said a lot of things that day about his vision for this team, and how it would reflect its city. He explained his football lineage. His aggressive mindset. His philosophy on offense and defense. If you really listened, you heard all the things we’re seeing today.

Of course, he also said the kneecap thing, and that’s all so many could hear.

It spawned a thousand headlines and even more jokes. Campbell’s message resonated with a city that had lost all hope -- just as he intended -- but was lampooned nationally. He was called a jock. He was called Fred Flintstone. USA Today’s headline that day: “Detroit Lions new coach Dan Campbell, unlike Eric Bieniemy, has luxury of being a meathead.”

Harsh.

They were far, far from alone.

“You’re probably one of them,” Campbell told yet another reporter asking about kneecaps on Sunday evening. “To each his own. We’re going to the NFC championship game with that group of guys, all right?”

All right, Dan.

All right.

The Lions continued their historic roll on Sunday, scoring three straight second-half touchdowns to pull away from the Tampa Bay Buccaneers in a 31-23 dogfight at Ford Field. With that, this unforgettable season continues on to the NFC championship game, where they’ll face the top-seeded 49ers in San Francisco. The winner advances to Super Bowl LVIII in Las Vegas.

Three years to the day. That’s all it took for Dan Campbell to go from national punchline to the NFC championship game. To take the Detroit Lions from eternal joke to the brink of a Super Bowl.

And no one is laughing at them anymore.

“When I got here, you tell your friends you’re on the Lions and they’re like, ‘Oh you guys are no good. You’re not gonna do anything,’” receiver Amon-Ra St. Brown said. “We know what the perception is. But we have a chance to change things, not just for this year, but for years to come.”

Things have been changing around here for a long time now, although the results weren’t immediate. They needed 12 games just to notch their first win after hiring Campbell and general manager Brad Holmes. This regime was 4-19-1 as recently as 14 months ago. Holmes and owner Sheila Hamp made rare in-season comments to reporters trying to calm the waters.

But they continued to build the right way, the Dan Campbell way, populating the roster with power and grit. They loaded up the trenches by using their first big-money extension to lock up Frank Ragnow for the long term. On Sunday, playing through toe, knee and back injuries, Ragnow crumpled to the ground holding his knee -- the same knee that underwent meniscus surgery this season. He missed one game with that injury, then was back in the lineup a week later. He didn’t allow a pressure.

So it should come as no surprise that Ragnow -- who once played through a fractured throat, and of course still refused to allow a pressure -- didn’t so much as miss a single snap after banging the knee once more against Tampa. Heck, he refused to even take his helmet off while the defense was out on the field. And one quarter later, Ragnow mustered the strength to move 347-pound Vita Vea out of a hole on a fourth-down touchdown run.

This regime used its first draft pick to continue building around Ragnow and Taylor Decker by adding Penei Sewell, who at 23 years old, just ranked as the No. 1 offensive tackle in professional football according to Pro Football Focus. And when the final day of that draft rolled around, they had a not-so-big, not-so-fast receiver out of USC circled in red atop their draft board.

His name: Amon-Ra St. Brown.

Now St. Brown personifies everything this rebuild is about. He’s a hard-blocking receiver who plays his best under the brightest lights. Even on a day when he didn’t have his best stuff, he dragged a Bucs defender across the line of gain on third-and-15, then got behind the defense for a 9-yard touchdown that finally broke open the game with 6:27 left.

St. Brown is among the collection of misfit toys that Campbell and Holmes brought to Detroit. Guys no one else wanted, who have now led the sport’s biggest loser to a play-in game for the Super Bowl. Guys like Jared Goff, who was run out of Los Angeles so unceremoniously -- benched late in his final season, then traded to Detroit, watching as his head coach sipped cocktails with Matthew Stafford in Cabo before the ink was dry on the deal -- that he demanded a meeting with Sean McVay just to hear what went wrong to his face.

Last season, Goff returned to the Pro Bowl.

This year, he was the No. 2 passer in the league.

On Sunday, they were bellowing Goff’s name from the rafters during the pregame coin flip, and once again as he completed 15 of 16 passes while leading three straight touchdown drives that changed the game in the second half. The Lions had almost no running game against Tampa’s tough defense, and faced blitz after blitz after blitz from Todd Bowles. Goff still threw for 287 yards and two touchdowns, led the offense to 31 points, and still hasn’t turned over the ball in the playoffs while becoming the first Lions quarterback to win multiple postseason games since Tobin Rote in 1957.

Matthew Stafford and Sean McVay watched the game from the comforts of their homes.

“Brad and Dan have been very intentional about bringing in those type of guys who can handle moments like today and moments like last week, and the ups and downs of a season,” Goff said. “I think it’s all been intentionally done by them. We’re not here by accident.”

No kidding. Just look at the most recent draft class, which scored more touchdowns than any other in Lions history. And with a trip to the NFC championship game at stake, they shined all over the field. Jahmyr Gibbs -- perhaps the most scrutinized draft pick of this regime -- led them in rushing, and stiff-armed All-Pro safety Antoine Winfield Jr. as he crossed the goal line for a 31-yard touchdown that gave them a lead in the fourth quarter.

Another rookie, Sam LaPorta, led them in receptions (nine). Yet another rookie, Brian Branch, led them in tackles (nine) and tackles for loss (two).

Those guys have been stars this season, although the Lions have had stars before. They had Barry Sanders. They had Calvin Johnson. They had Stafford. And all those guys walked away or asked out of Detroit because they couldn’t stop the losing, and were over trying.

But this roster is better and deeper than perhaps ever before. It’s certainly grittier. Just look at Craig Reynolds, who played college ball at something called Kutztown University of Pennslyvania, and I swear I’m not making that up. He had a couple cups of coffee in the NFL, then was cut by Jacksonville in March of 2021 and went home to Philadelphia. No one called, and he thought his career might be over. Then the Lions came along five months later, ravaged by injuries in training camp and needing a warm body to help them get through a preseason game. Reynolds literally introduced himself to teammates in the huddle, then scored a touchdown before he knew most of their names.

His last carry was on Oct. 30.

His next carry came on fourth-and-goal in a divisional-round playoff game that was tied 10-all.

Touchdown.

That’s amazing. So is the story of Brock Wright, a blocking tight end who had just 13 catches all season, and none at all in the last six weeks. Then on third-and-1 in the third quarter, he faked like he was going to block once again before leaking across the backside of the line of scrimmage. Goff threw him a short pass, and Wright made the only guy in the same zip code miss. The play went for 29 yards, and helped set up Reynolds’ go-ahead plunge.

Then there’s the story of Derrick Barnes, the other guy taken in the fourth round of the 2021 draft. While St. Brown sprinted to stardom, Barnes was an undersized edge rusher who eventually moved to linebacker and struggled to carve out a role in Detroit. The following year, he watched a sixth-round pick (Malcolm Rodriguez) pass him in the rotation. The year after that, he watched Detroit spend the 18th overall pick on Jack Campbell.

But Barnes never lost faith or confidence, turned in his best training camp by far, and wound up starting 13 games. His most memorable play of the season came when he whiffed on a clean shot at Dak Prescott standing in Detroit’s end zone, a play that should have resulted in a safety, but instead wound up scoring a 92-yard touchdown the other way. Detroit lost by one point.

Three weeks later, Barnes clinched a trip to the NFC championship game when he made a brilliant interception with 1:33 left. He raised his hands to the sky in a hard-won moment of triumph.

“You’re built for this,” Campbell told his players in the locker room a few minutes later. “You’re (expletive) built for this, man. And look at what you guys did. It’s another hot team we (expletive) knocked off. Do you know how (expletive) hard it is to win in this league in the playoffs? Do you understand what we’re doing right now? What we’re capable of?”

The Detroit Lions are a story of generational heartbreak that is now capable of triumph. They are the perseverance of guys like Derrick Barnes, Brock Wright and Craig Reynolds. They are castoffs like Jared Goff. They are forgotten men like Amon-Ra St. Brown.

They are the grit and fearlessness of Dan Campbell.

They are Detroit.

Now they are headed to the NFC championship game, and no one is laughing at them now.

“We wanted (to build) something the city can be proud of. You can look at (our) guys and say, ‘I can back that guy, I can back that team, I can resonate with that group,’” Campbell said. “They’re salty. They don’t quit. They play hard. Our guys have a kinship with this city, this area. They love it, man.”