Shawn WindsorDetroit Free Press
SANTA CLARA, Calif. — Dan Campbell didn’t hold back in the locker room Sunday night at Levi’s Stadium after his Detroit Lions team just had its heart ripped out.
“This may have only been our only shot,” he told his players.
Whoa. And ... wow. But then Campbell is right. It’s hard to get to a conference title game. Look at Philly. Up-and-coming quarterback. Great in the trenches. Skill guys everywhere. And a year after winning the NFC championship, they get run off the field by the Tampa Bay Buccaneers to close the opening weekend of the playoffs.
The Eagles, for what it’s worth, lost their coordinators in the offseason. They lost a few key players, too. Turnover happens to every team, but especially to winning teams. Other franchises want their coaches. And their free agents. And those coaches and players want to get paid and get new challenges.
The Lions will have some decisions to make about their free agents. Likewise, whether they keep defensive coordinator Aaron Glenn or offensive coordinator Ben Johnson is not entirely up to them.
If Glenn and Johnson go, though, their replacements will surely influence the Lions' chances next year. Just as a more difficult schedule will. And the fact that they will get every team’s best effort now that they are the up-and-coming squad.
Well, maybe not the up-and-comer, but one of them, certainly. The problem is, there are up-and-comers every season. The Lions were one, coming off a 9-8 season last year. And still, they moved up. Building on that momentum every year is difficult in a league designed to give the bottom teams every chance to get to the top.
So, yes, Campbell said, this may have been the Lions’ only shot. It’d be irresponsible for him not to say it. Not to tell his players. Not that they don’t already know — the veterans anyway.
[ MUST LISTEN: Listen below as "Carlos and Shawn" react from Santa Clara to the Detroit Lions' Super Bowl dream ending in a crushing loss to the 49ers. Also available anywhere you listen to podcasts (Apple, Spotify) ]
Now, does Campbell believe this is the Lions' only shot? That the next fantastical ride into late-January relevance is another three decades away?
“No,” he said as he stood at the podium, red-faced and heartbroken. “But I know how hard it is to get here. I’m well aware, and it’s going to be twice as hard to get back to this point next year ... that’s the reality.”
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The reality, too, is that it’ll look different next year. Feel different, too. Expectations do that. And so does the salary cap.
Campbell insists that if the team doesn’t have the same hunger, nothing else will matter — not the talent or the schemes or the draft or free agents.
“I don’t care how much better we get or what we’re at or what we draft — it's irrelevant,” he said. “If we don’t have the same work (ethic) ... then we have no shot of getting back here.”
That starts with Campbell, of course. He has to repeat what he just did. He has to motivate and prod and lead just as he did, only more, because as he mentioned, everything is about to get harder.
The same is true of general manager Brad Holmes, who must take his eye for talent and hit on the defensive side as well as he has the offensive side. Whether through the draft or free agency or trades, he has to get the defense to the next level — not a dominant level, just the next level.
Because there are levels here, right?
San Francisco may not be much better than the Lions, but the 49ers' roster was a touch deeper and diverse, and it had a few more avenues in which to make plays.
This makes sense. Their journey started earlier — head coach Kyle Shanahan is in his seventh season by the Bay — and when they play Kansas City in Super Bowl 58 in two weeks, they’ll get another chance to get the ring that has eluded this core group for the last five years.
That they keep getting chances is impressive, because it’s hard. That they keep getting back, that they rallied Sunday, that they rallied last weekend against Green Bay, speaks to the heart of the players, yes, but also to Shanahan, and to general manager John Lynch.
The pair’s first Super Bowl trip involved a different starting quarterback in Jimmy Garoppolo. He’s an afterthought in the Bay Area now. Brock Purdy is the main thought, at least under center. But he’s not the main thought overall, the way Joe Montana or Steve Young once were.
But Purdy made the winning plays in Sunday's second half. He shed tacklers, made throws on the run and scrambled when he had nowhere to go down the field.
So, yes, Purdy is a difference-maker. Credit Lynch for finding him (with the final pick of the 2022 draft) and Shanahan for developing him. Yet San Francisco is back in the Super Bowl because they’ve had one of the best rosters for a half decade now.
That’s Lynch. That’s Shanahan.
And in Detroit, that has to be Holmes and Campbell. They will be the reason the Lions return to the NFC title game or reach their first Super Bowl. And they will be the reason if they don't.
You either believe in them or you don’t. You either think the Lions have their version of Lynch and Shanahan and they'll be back here (or hosting the game themselves) next year, or you don’t and think this was a year sprinkled in fairy-tale dust — that teens who love this team will be weeping in their middle ages the next time the Lions win a home playoff game.
The Lions may not play exactly like the 49ers; the talent-to-talent comparisons don’t always match up. But San Francisco and its leaders showed what it looks like when a franchise has the two most critical pieces in place.
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The Lions just spent the past three seasons showing they do, too. That buildup sure suggests that Sunday’s loss, while crushing, is the start of the next phase, and not a one-hit wonder.
Yeah, it is hard to get here. That Campbell told them how hard it would be to get back is exactly why they’ll have a chance to get back.
Next year. And the year after that. And the year after that.
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Contact Shawn Windsor: 313-222-6487 orswindsor@freepress.com. Follow him @shawnwindsor.
