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October 1, 2025 • 17 mins
Shep tells you why Dan Campbell deserves even MORE respect as an elite head coach in the NFL. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See https://pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.
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Transcript

Episode Transcript

Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
How much you made some huge plays.

Speaker 2 (00:01):
Muhammed made huge players.

Speaker 1 (00:02):
Jaq Campbell read, I mean we can go down golf
saying freaking demo that old line soul. I mean we
just at different times and critical moments, our guys stepped
up and when we needed at most, every unit picked
up the slack. And that's those That's what winning teams do,
That's what they do.

Speaker 2 (00:23):
I just love that guy, man. I mean, you know,
it's not because he's It's not just because Dan Campbell wins.
I mean that's a huge part of it. I just
love the former player in him comes out so often
in his appreciation for what his players bring to the
table every single day. And I think we're really fortunate

(00:45):
to have Dan Campbell. I'm going to make a really
I talk about hyperbolic. You know, I just criticized somebody
earlier in the show for being hyperbolic about Trek Scoobill
being the best picture in Tiger's history. Okay, I'm going
to be hyperbolic here. It may not be going out

(01:07):
on much of a limb, but I'm gonna go hyperbolic.
Dan Campbell's the best coach the Lions have ever had,
who was it before him, nobody really knows. I mean,
you could talk about Buddy Parker, you could talk about
Wayne Vonce, you could talk about maybe maybe Jim Caldwell.

(01:29):
No one's really ever won anything with him, right, I
mean NFL championships. But when you have to go back
to that type of day before a Super Bowl, will
you grant me this? In the Super Bowl era, I'm
not old enough to know a lot of the Detroit
Lions coaches. Okay, I've been covering that team for a long, long,

(01:54):
long time. Not as long as Michaelherra, not as long
as Kurt Sylvester used to, but a long time. So
forgive me if I can't recall nineteen fifty seven like
I should. But when you look back in Lions football,

(02:14):
George Wilson, Buddy Parker, those guys, aside Dan Campbell's the
best they've ever had. You want players to play hard
all the time, because you work hard all the time.
A lot of millennials may not. We want four day
work weeks, we want one hour cigarette breaks. We would

(02:38):
love to have the ability to work from home all
the time. All that stuff. Can't stand any of it,
But I digress. You want your team to play hard
all the time. Look at what Boston did last night.
Did you watch the Red Sox and Yankees? I mean,
if you're a baseball fan, I hope you would, not
just because ESPN shoves it down your throat, but because
it's a playoff series and you may have to play

(02:59):
one of those teams eventually. I mean, the winner gets
Toronto if you beat Seattle, because you're gonna beat Cleveland.
If you beat Seattle, then you may have to play
either New York or Bosson. It's a big reason why
I watched, but I also like watching baseball. In the
seventh inning, Red Sox are down one. They got a
runner at first. Nate Eaton, a rookie left handed hitter,

(03:20):
singles to right center field. It's a single. And you
know how I feel about Aaron Judge. I like him
a lot. I'd want him on my team all the time.
He's the captain of the Yankees, and I don't want
him just because of his bad I love the attitude.
Dode want a batting title this year for crying out
loud and still smoked over fifty bombs. All right, he's

(03:42):
a producer, But eating singles to right center field it
should be a single out of the box. That son
of a gun was motoring, not a night Ranger song.
Motoring all the way to second base, head first slide.
He's in there. If he gets thrown out, people in
Boston are screaming, what the hell are you doing? Why

(04:03):
you playing hero ball? You took us out of an inning.
It could have been a bigginning all that other crap.
What that dude did was I know my teammates going
first to third, I'm going to get in scoring position,
and by damn, he did it. Aaron Judge was a
little lackadaisical. Let's focus on the positive from eaton out

(04:24):
of the box, thinking double and got it, hustle. That's
what you want, right. Dan Campbell gets that out of
his team on a regular basis. Is that because he
used to be a player. I don't know. I think
a lot of it has to do the fact that
Detroit recruits drafts the right people, he coaches the right way.

(04:55):
His team knows going in again, we'll use the word culture.
That's what everybody likes to use when you come to Detroit.
When you are a Detroit Lion, you must give it
everything you have and play the game the right way. Now,
I understand there are exceptions. Once in a while, Brian

(05:20):
Branch doing the double bird is not great. Brian Branch
grabbing a Green Bay Packer's helmet and throwing it isn't
the right way. But more oftentimes than not, I would
say every single Sunday minus a play or two, and
you're going to have that when there's over one hundred
and twenty plays in a game. Your defense is on
the field for an all likelihood somewhere between fifty eight

(05:42):
sixty five plays. Your offense is out there somewhere between
fifty eight and sixty five plays. So if you're looking
at one hundred and twenty to one hundred and thirty
plays and you could pick out one or two, I
think your team's doing okay. I think your team's doing
it the right way. And that's what they do, and
that's what the individuals do and everybody knows when they

(06:04):
come to Detroit that's what you have to do in
order to get there, in order to play here. That's
what has to happen. Dan Campbell is the reason for
that past experience. When are we maybe national but especially us,
when are we going to start to give him the
recognition he deserves. When is it people stop thinking about

(06:30):
the kneecaps, the grit, the dip in his mouth, and
the deep voice, appreciation for all his players, runs out
of time to think all his players and just recognize,
you know what, that dude knows football as well as
anybody we've had in this town, and perhaps as well
as any coach in America. We feel like there are

(06:54):
certain guys who are geniuses. When I say to you
NFL football minds, who comes to mind? Bill Belichick now
at North Carolina, So let's just go to the NFL.
Andy Reid, Sean McVeigh, Oh capit, O'Connell, Oh my goodness,

(07:16):
it's getting hot and bothered. Kyle Shanahan, You bet, baby?
What about Dan Campbell? Why not? What? A guy can't
do it because he wears a baseball hat and a
Detroit Lion sweatshirt. Bill Belichick wore the sweatshirt. Everybody thought
it was really cool. Mike McDaniel wears a sweatshirt and
what are those short pants called? Trent helped me with

(07:37):
the style, yeah, thank you, and Caprice and everybody thought
he was a boy. Wonder going to Miami probably don't
think that way anymore. Dan Campbell's a guy's guy, and
for some reason people hold it against him. It's bull crap.
Brilliant might be too strong of a word. I don't

(07:58):
know who we would call brilliant. You called Don Shula,
Tom Landry, Bill Walsh brilliant? Perhaps? How many games does
a guy have to win, how many players does he
have to change, how many fan bases does he have
to win over? And how many players have to come
through here and call it one of the best experiences

(08:19):
of their professional lifetime for us to realize that he
is a difference maker? Why why not? Saw a stat
the other day Jared Goff has played the same number
of games as a Lion as he did as a Ram.
He has the same number of wins as a Lion

(08:40):
as he did as a Ram. His winning percentage is
slightly better in Detroit, just because he has a tie
instead of one extra loss. So I think it's forty
two twenty six to one as a Lion forty two
twenty seven as a Ram. In Los Angeles, he was
playing for a brilliant stratch, just a brilliant offensive mind,

(09:04):
a play caller who changed the game to a certain
extent for his generation in Detroit, he plays for a
grit guy who does commercials for lawyers and for Applebee's.
What the hell? What are we doing here? Can we
recognize instead of getting caught up at all the minutia

(09:28):
and the hats that write grit, including those that are
written upside down T shirts that write grit, getting pictures
of him picking up a coffee on a victorious Monday
with a little lap dog, and considering him any less
of a coach than Sean McVeigh, because why, it's stupid.

(09:52):
Think about it for a minute. Let's be smart as
we evaluate coaches. Do we think the only thing coaches
do is call plays on Sunday or Saturday if you're
a college player, or Tuesday and Wednesday if you're the
Mid American Conference? But I digress. You understand what I'm saying, right?

(10:14):
Why is it? Is it not keeping a team together?
Is it not finding the right players? Is it not
what we give aj Hinch so much credit for, and
rightfully so, putting players in a situation to succeed? We
do that with aj Hinch. Zach McKinstry lays a bunt down.
Look at how beautiful it was aj Hinch has Javier

(10:36):
Baias playing up the middle, and that's by golly where
it was hit. He Pinch hits at the right time.
He brings in relievers at the right time. He's a
manager playing chess against everybody else who's playing checkers. Dan
Campbell does it on a regular basis with his guys.
Maybe we don't notice it as much because there's so

(10:58):
much chaos in football with guys running on and running
off that we just keep thinking of him as a
guy who wants to bite kneecaps on his way up
from getting knocked down. And it's simple minded, it's stupid,
and it's wrong. It's a really good debate in this

(11:19):
town right now. The best coach we have in this city,
because all four are really good JB. Bickerstab. You don't
just go a plus thirty and one year if you're
not a good coach. Todd McClelland immediately a seven game
on beaten streak, granted didn't make the playoffs already making

(11:39):
a difference in his first training camp as head coach
of the Red Wings because he was an assistant coach
under Mike Babcock and in training camp but making sure
even veterans, there's got to be more of a sense
of urgency even in the preseason. Sorry, this is not
the way it's going to be done anyway anymore, because
guess what I can lose with other guys. It's been

(12:00):
nine years for this franchise to reach the postseason, So
we're gonna do some things differently. Good for him, He's
a good hockey coach. Aj Hinchy goes without saying a
very good manager. Dan Campbell belongs in the exact same conversation,
not just because of wins, but because the players he
brings in, how he puts them in the right situations,

(12:23):
how much better they get, and the fact that that
dude can relate to everybody in his locker room perhaps
better than any coach in this city. What is it
he needs to do to prove to you that he
truly is a football genius? Or maybe it's impossible to

(12:47):
do it. Maybe it's impossible because you can't get past
the grit wearing hat and the dip that he has
when he talks to the sideline reporter. That's a you problem,
Dan Campbell problem. Our phone number on the Meyer Hotline
is eight sixty six, eight three eight forty eight forty three.

(13:07):
You could text us Sports Radio at twenty one thousand.
I just I thought it was really important to say
that because this is a really, it's a it really
has a glorious time to be a Lions fan. It's
better than anything I've ever experienced in my NFL watching days.

(13:29):
There used to be a time I was talking with
a friend of mine. The over the weekend used to
be a time where you had to pick an alternate team.
Guess what your team is? Now somebody else's alternate team.
There's kids probably in Hell. We saw it the other day.
We saw Joe Flacco a video, really good video from Fox.
Best part of the broadcast where Joe Flacco's kids are

(13:50):
wearing Aman Rossain Brown jerseys. His kids are drawing pictures
of Jamiir Gibbs. The Lions have become other fan bases
alternate teams. When's the last time that happened? Let me
think about that. Never. There are kids in Tennessee who
are going, my team sucks. Who's your second favorite team?
The Lions love the way they play right. There are players,

(14:16):
not players. There are kids who are struggling to love
football in New Orleans because their team sucks, and say,
you know what, I really like watching the Lions play.
That's the way it was when I was a kid man.
You love the Lions. Yeah, they're gonna make the playoffs. No,
gotta have a second their team. Yes, I say this

(14:39):
story all the time. I had to tell the end
of the year. Call my son Chad. I'm really sorry.
I know, Dad, It's okay. He knows exactly what I
was talking about. I do apologize for raising Alliance fan.
I don't have to apologize anymore. I actually encourage it now.

(15:00):
He's thankful. Now he loves watching them. Now he and
his friends talk about them now in a positive light,
not in a negative one. That's awesome. It's the reason
we trust them. I was reading a national article the
other day about NFL contenders we trust and don't trust.

(15:25):
Who are the teams you don't trust? Now? Would you
consider the Jags a contender? They're three and one everybody.
They just beat the Chargers, so they're three and one.
Are they a contender?

Speaker 1 (15:39):
Yet?

Speaker 2 (15:39):
The quarter pole? They are? They and the Colts are
the perhaps the biggest surprises, and they both play in
the AFC South Do you trust them? Probably not? The
Niners are three and one. Do you trust them? Rac
Perty's complaining about his toe again? Maybe not. The Broncos

(16:01):
were a surprise a year ago. They're two and two
this year. Do you trust them? It's tough with bo
Nicks right now, even though he's coming off a career
game New England two and two? Maybe maybe a year away.
Right there's a trust thing that you're enjoying. The Bears,
do you trust them? Some get steamrolled by the Lions.
It's a lasting impression, so perhaps you don't trust them.

(16:22):
The reason you trust the Lions, Sure, they've got a
lot of talent. You trust the head guy. The dude
knows how to reach players. The dude knows how to
coach players. The dude knows how to win games. The
other beautiful thing about it is, and we brought this
up earlier in the show in case you missed it,

(16:43):
more oftentimes than not, a lot more oftentimes than not,
they're beating the teams that you and I think they
quote unquote should beat you, should take care of business
in Cleveland? Check right, Green Bay. You can't say that.
It's not that I don't think Matt Lafleur is a
good which I do think he's a good coach. It's
not that I don't think Michael Parsons and Rashaun Gary

(17:04):
are really good. They are arguably the best pass rushing
duo in the league. People in Houston would argue with
Hunter and Anderson Junior, but you don't you understand they've
they've got talent. They're good. Right, They've lost to Cleveland
and tied Dallas.
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