The mental strain on this Detroit Lions team cannot be easy this week. Even with the great news that linebacker Jack Campbell has full movement in his lower body after a traumatic neck injury on Sunday, it’s natural as human beings for the entire locker room to have their attention divided between Campbell’s recovery and Sunday’s upcoming game against the Miami Dolphins.
Lions coach Dan Campbell isn’t running away from that difficult reality.
“There’s no easy way to do this, but you also have to acknowledge
it, and let’s talk about it and make sure we know,” Campbell said. “But I also know they’re not postponing this game. And I know the only way to honor Jack, we know the only way to really honor Jack and what he really wants is to make sure that we’re locked in and ready to go because otherwise what just kind of came about, then we’re throwing it away in a sense.”
Like any other week, the Lions have mental health professionals in house to help any players who may need support or just a person to talk to. Campbell indicated that there are players who have already utilized those resources this week.
Lions coach Scottie Montgomery is taking a similar approach to Dan Campbell, noting that it’s impossible to ignore their “fallen leader.”
“The key word is balance. The human in all of us—we play football, we coach football, but our first element is the human element,” Montgomery said. “It’s very difficult, of course, emotionally to be in a game like that, having a situation like that happen. An what we do have to talk about, we can’t ignore, we have had open dialogue. We do do this with our players. Because we do have concern for our fallen leader. That’s exactly who he was, I don’t know any other way to say it.”
But the Lions are hopeful they can turn that concern for Campbell into an on-field honoring of everything he represents. Campbell is one of the hardest-working players on the team, and they know one of the best ways to honor him is to attack the week like he would.
“I think we owe it to him, we owe it to all of ourselves to make sure we’re locked in and we make the most of this,” Campbell said. “And so, it’s balancing, you’re humans and you know it, you want to acknowledge it. It’s a lot, but if that’s weighing that heavy and that’s where your mind’s at, it’s not going to be good going in this game and that’s where you can get hurt as well.”
“We’re honoring him by the way that we prepare We’re preparing like he prepares,” Montgomery added. “That’s what we’re talking with each other about. As players, as coaches, we’re going to prepare like he prepares. We’re going to play like he plays. We’re going to do the things that he would have us do. […] There’s no way around anybody in that locker room not feeling a certain way about him. But that same feeling that causes pain, it causes us to pursue the excellence of what Jack would want us to do in this situation, and that’s go prepare and get ready to go down and play a good football team and play to a high level this weekend.“
