Windy City Gridiron
We spoke with Pride of Detroit to preview the Thanksgiving day match-up
The Chicago Bears head to Detroit to face the Lions to kick off the NFL’s Thanksgiving Day festivities on Thursday. The Bears beat the Lions three straight times on Thanksgiving, in 2018, 2019, and 2021. However, this time the Lions sit as a double-digit favorite. Will things change? We sat down with Ryan Mathews from Pride of Detroit to understand why the Detroit Lions have been so darn good this year.
1. As a fellow fan of an NFC North team that was routinely sharing the basement with Detroit, what has it been like seeing this change from Detroit being a doormat to the best team in the NFC? How did the Lions manage to take years of franchise dysfunction and shove it aside and look like a team that could very well be set up for sustained success?
Ownership. A new vision for what it meant to build a football team. The firing of Matt Patricia and Bob Quinn, and the subsequent hiring process that led the Lions to choosing both Dan Campbell and Brad Holmes is what turned this franchise into what it is today. Oftentimes you see organizations course correct their head coaching position by prioritizing a side of the ball. If it was a defensive head coach that sunk your ship, get the young, bright, offensive-minded virtuoso to fix your team’s problems, or vice versa.
The culture–or lack thereof–that Patricia cultivated in Detroit was one built on confrontation disguised as accountability. Go figure that ruling with an iron fist and failing to relate to players, or even showing them respect when in team meetings, wasn’t one that resulted in successful football. So when Sheila Ford Hamp succeeded her mother, Martha Firestone Ford, as Principal Owner and Chair of the Detroit Lions, she didn’t enlist a firm to help find their next head coach. She leaned on the football people in the building like former Lions linebacker Chris Spielman to help prioritize the right characteristics and traits to look for in their next leader.
It all starts at the top, and the Lions have definitely put the right people in place to build a successful football team.
2. When Dan Campbell was first hired and was talking about biting knees, I thought he was just going to be another Lions coach who would be gone in three years. He’s proven me wrong and built something special. What has Campbell done to create such a fantastic culture and how do you think he’s come along as an in-game coach on Sundays?
*Campbell was really whittled down into a caricature of himself from that introductory press conference by nearly every media outlet. What people overlooked was the authenticity, and that’s who Campbell is as a leader. He is intense and as passionate as they come. Sure, there’s some unconventionality to the words he uses to get his point across, but that’s who he is, and no...
