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00:00He is Lions head coach Dan Campbell. Coach, appreciate some of your time. Good morning.
00:05Good morning. How's it going? Good. Yeah, it's going all right. How's this one sat with you
00:11now that you've had to sit with it for a couple of days? Yeah, I mean, you never like losing,
00:17and especially when you cross your team as a head coach, but I'll be honest with you,
00:21I woke up today, man, I'm ready to go. I mean, that's just how I am. So, I'm moving forward.
00:27We've got to put together a really good plan for this opponent. They're playing good football
00:30right now out there, but we've got to get back on track, and I think we will.
00:35You mentioned it, you said the coach cost him. You took the blame coming out of half
00:39in the postgame, and listening to some of the guys in the locker room, it seems like
00:42they respect that, that you had that accountability, but there was a second half,
00:47and there were some other things that you guys could have done to win that game.
00:50Can you just break down some of the issues holding down, holding back the offense,
00:54getting bogged down in the red zone? As you diagnosed that, where did you guys go wrong?
00:59Yeah, I mean, really, it wasn't just one guy. I mean, there was, you know, we get down there
01:06and, you know, we have one, okay, we don't like to call. I know that Ben had one he'd like
01:15to have back down there. Okay, well, there's one. Then we get down there, we have an M.A.
01:20on a route, you know, that's going to be a gimme to get us continue as we get down there tighter.
01:27Then we have a missed block, you know. We have a misread. You know, and it was like
01:34just one thing after another, and it just, it was never one person. It was just one person here,
01:41one person there, and we're just a tick off. That's, you know, that was really kind of the story
01:47of the day down there. But it's like I said yesterday, we were so close to just blowing this out.
01:52And look, like I say, when you get the game that tight, you know, the objective is to win.
02:00And look, Tampa, they played a hell of a game, and I would never take anything away from
02:06Bowles and that team what they did. But the bottom line is, you get in that type of game,
02:12man, every point counts. Every drive counts. And the last thing you can have happen is for your coach
02:18to botch that right before halftime. So I like our odds. I don't do that. And then we clean the rest
02:23of this up, we move forward. So look, one of the other things is our run game wasn't great
02:28in the red zone either. We tried to get our run game going there late, and really particularly
02:34in the red zone, it wasn't good other than our fourth and one that we had, you know, that Gibbs
02:40hit it and toe-tapped down there. We got a big game. But everything else, it was, you know,
02:45we just couldn't get it going. And that was the plan, was once we kind of opened it up
02:49with a pass game, we'd run it.
02:52With the offense in large part having all the key components back, and from the outside
02:58looking in, it feels like everything else that you lost from last year has been upgraded.
03:03Are you surprised at two games in that you're just a tick off offensively?
03:09No. I mean, look, you're always hopeful that you're going to hit the ground running. I mean,
03:14every coach will tell you that. I mean, you're just hopeful that, man, you're hitting on
03:18all cylinders and it comes. But no, I'm not shocked. I'll be honest with you, I wouldn't
03:22be shocked if we're not cooking by the time we get to the bye. I mean, it just, sometimes
03:27it takes a minute. I mean, all those great offenses we had in New Orleans, the great
03:32offenses that we've had here over the last three years, man, it's not always perfect,
03:37and it's not always perfect early. And so, no, I'm not rattled or shaken by this at
03:43all. We are so much closer than I think a lot of people even realize. Our players understand
03:50it, the coaches understand it, but we just have to correct, really, those issues that
03:56came up the other day. Just the small little details and the nuances of the game plan per
04:02the opponent. And because we made so many improvements from the Rams game, and so we
04:08just got to do that again here and take it out to Arizona.
04:13Areas of improvement or maybe getting a tick better, why has Sam Laporta not been more
04:17involved through two games?
04:19Well, I think some of Sam is, you know, he had the injury coming out of training camp,
04:24and so we were trying to be smart with him for the Rams game for sure. And I was actually
04:29worried about him getting too many reps in the Rams game. So, you know, you start trying
04:34to build a huge game plan for a guy and you don't know if he'll be able to make it all
04:38those reps. You know, and then you get hurt or something happens, you just lost, you know,
04:4540% of your game plan. So you've got to be smart about that.
04:48And I think last week we had some things in form. Hell, we had a couple of plays down
04:52in the red zone they took away. You know, defensively they did a good job, we dumped
04:56it down. And so the ball just didn't really find him for this game. But look, he's not
05:01somebody we don't think about. We want to get all those guys' touches. We want to get
05:05Saint more touches, and Saint had a lot. I mean, let's get it in his hands. We want to
05:08get Gibbs more touches, Montgomery. We want to get Laporta. We'd like to get Leaf a couple
05:12more, or J-Mo. So we've got a lot of mouths to feed, and look, we're going to use everything
05:19at our disposal to help us win here.
05:22One of the bright spots, obviously, four-and-a-half sacks from Aiden Hutchinson. I know you've
05:27talked about his effort before, and you mentioned in Week 1 against the Rams, you weren't going
05:32to get home because that ball was coming out so quickly. How consistent has Aiden Hutchinson
05:38been for you guys, and is this just a matter of you're finally seeing all of it show up
05:44in a stat column?
05:47Yeah, look, I would say this. Number one, Hutch, like you started this off with, I don't
05:55know if anybody quite understands just how hard this guy works. I mean, he grinds in
06:00practice, and he grinds in the games. I mean, he works and works and works, and when you're
06:07a player that has talent, and you grind on it, and you work your craft, and you continue
06:14to develop other moves and other ways to win, and then you set your mindset to where
06:18I know I have to beat two. I have to beat two. Because now he's going to start getting
06:23three. He's going to get the release through by the tight end. He's going to get the chip
06:28from the back, and he's got to beat the tackle. So now his mindset's got to be I've got to
06:32beat three. I've got to beat three. And he doesn't bitch. He doesn't complain. He doesn't
06:36worry about anything. He just works, and his craft has gotten so much better. And so when
06:43you do that and have that, and then you're talking about guys around him playing at a
06:48high level like Levi. I thought Levi played so dang good yesterday or two days ago. I
06:53mean, he was so disruptive. But those guys, they all have a piece of that pie, man, the
07:01way that the rush lanes work, the rush plan. And so Levi helped Hutch. Reeder helped Hutch.
07:08Mack helped Hutch. They're all kind of feeding off each other because, man, they're doing
07:13their job. They're rushing unselfishly, and the ones who have the most dividends from
07:19it in the stat sheet is Hutch right now, but they're all about to get some out of this.
07:23They'll all eat eventually.
07:25Yeah, you can't hand out hardware after two games, but I know DJ Reeder has said there
07:29are the tools for Aiden Hutchinson to be the defensive player of the year. Do you see that?
07:35Man, I would never bet against Hutch. I mean, he's got everything that it would take to
07:44get to that point. It's just you never know. It's a long season. I don't know what's going
07:48on outside of this league, but if you're talking about a guy who's got it and works at it and
07:57is going to do everything that you ask in a plan and help your team win and play at
08:02a high level, I mean, he's it.
08:04I just know he's wired, man. He's wired right, and he's just going to continue to bring it.
08:09The things about him right now, he wants more, and I love that. You love that about him.
08:15I mean, he just smells blood in the water, and he wants more, he wants more, he wants
08:18more, and so he's pretty driven that way.
08:21For Jared Goff, obviously a couple of interceptions. The first one, I'm not going to put that one
08:27on him because I thought it was P. I don't know if you guys have turned that one into
08:30the league, but he's played at a better level. What are some of the issues he's been dealing
08:36with, and what are you seeing from Jared Goff?
08:39Yeah, look, I think there was a couple of things, and I told him this yesterday. One
08:46of the notes I wrote, I'm like, man, I just feel like a couple of times you're trying
08:51to do too much is all. Man, he's trying to keep the play alive a little longer than need
08:58be. Just a couple of things there that I felt like didn't help us. But other than that,
09:07I mean, look, he's going to find his rhythm. For some things that didn't go well, he also
09:12threw some outstanding passes in this game, some big-time passes. And so, look, he got
09:19hit a few times. We were going to rely on him considerably in this game.
09:27Completion-type game, they did a good job of mixing a number of things up. I did think
09:32he saw it well, but look, there's a few times now, too, where he's in there and the throw
09:39is there to be had, and man, he's got to get rid of it. It's force in his face, and so
09:47the way the play is designed, that guy is open, but we can't get him the ball. So, look,
09:54he's going to be fine. I'm not worried about him. He's a competitor. He's like any of us,
09:59man. He wants to play better. I want to coach better. So he's going to bounce back and be
10:03just fine.
10:04Talking to Lions head coach Dan Campbell, I know you said some of the game plan was
10:07pass to set up the run, but were you at all surprised to see 55 pass attempts, especially
10:13second half when they lost Vita Vella? It felt like your identity, that doesn't feel
10:17like Dan Campbell football. Get some more rushing attempts in there.
10:21Yeah, I think when we came out of the game, it was like, wow, man, I didn't realize we
10:25had 55 attempts, but no. Look, Ben and I talked about this going into it, and we felt like
10:31it was the right thing to do, and I'm not going to second guess that. It was really
10:35leading up to like it was before, and we're so close to making the play, and we almost,
10:44man, there's a few of those runs, a few of the passes that we had that we were so close.
10:48So no, I'm not worried about that. I'm not going to second guess it. Listen, every opponent
10:53is different. Every game plan is different. So listen, we can go back and forth on all
10:58that. The bottom line is, and why you're asking all this is because we lost the game, and
11:02so I get it. I understand that. But if we had to do it all over again, yeah, I might
11:10give a couple more carries, but it would still be tilted to the pass game.
11:14Dan, just a last note then, looking ahead. Arizona, road game, mindset, what are the
11:19things you stress this week?
11:21Well, I think more importantly than anything is us getting back on track, man. Let's just
11:26focus on us, worry about us. We can't look down the road. We can't begin to look like
11:32what is it, who won, what's going on in our division. Just worry about what we are here.
11:36We can't listen to outside noise. Let's get back on track. Let's really study and
11:41understand this opponent, and really it's about being 1-0. This is a new week. We've
11:46got one opponent here. It's one game, and we need to come out of this 1-0. That's really
11:50going to be the story of the week.
11:52We'll talk to you after the Arizona game. Appreciate your time. Thanks, Dan.
11:55All right. Thanks, guys.