NFL · 1 month ago

NFL Coach’s Challenge: Should the Detroit Lions Fire Dan Campbell?

Joe Cervenka

Host · Writer

After a stunning late-season collapse, the Detroit Lions face an uncomfortable question. Did Dan Campbell’s aggression and internal promotions derail a once-promising Super Bowl window?

Let’s dive in and answer the question, should the Lions can Campbell.

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Beat at Your Own Game

One day after the Lions were eliminated from the playoffs following their second loss of the season to division rival, the Minnesota Vikings, opinions, rumors, and cases are being made to get rid of Dan Campbell.

The 23-10 defeat came with Hall-of-Shame stats for a Lions squad fighting for their playoff lives. Minnesota was just the third team in the past 40 years to pick up a win with less than 10 net passing yards. Undrafted rookie Max Brosmer, who, a few weeks ago, made one of the most ridiculous pick-six plays you’ll ever see, had only 16 passing attempts on Christmas Day but didn’t turn the ball over.

What the Vikes did on Thursday was beat Campbell at his own game, smash-mouth football. They owned the line on both sides of the ball, getting key stops, while pounding the rock methodically to wear down Detroit’s defense.

At the end of the day, a Detroit team that won 15 games last year, was the preseason favorite to win the NFC (+400) and fifth on the Super Bowl oddsboard (+800), may finish the season under .500.

Now the question becomes, should Lions brass bite the kneecap of Dan Campbell’s head coaching career in Motown?

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4th and Forever and Ever

In the age of analytics, more and more coaches are taking the risk and going for it on fourth down. Gambling from their own end, on plays where a field goal will tie it, and multiple scenarios you would never see, even just a few years ago, have become more and more commonplace.

Campbell has come under fire for being too aggressive on fourth down, riverboat gambling when the smarter play seems to be take the points.

Following a 16-9 Week 11 loss to the Philadelphia Eagles, where Detroit went 0-5 on fourth down, including a failed fake punt, Campbell told the Detroit Free Press,

“…if you go totally conservative, in the way this game played out, in the way it was, you got a better chance of winning that game than some of those decisions I made. I understand that. But also, that’s who we are, that’s who I am. And it bit us today.”

In a grind-it-out game against the defending Super Bowl champs, field position could have swayed the outcome. Hindsight is 20-20, but one signature win in an NFC contender-litmus-test game could have paid enormous dividends for team confidence and morale, and put Detroit in a better position down the stretch. Instead, it added to the Lions’ middling 58.06% fourth-down conversion rate (ranking 17th), making them a middling NFL team in 2025.

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Promote and Demote is not the Antidote

Replacing a creative offensive mind like former OC Ben Johnson would have been a tough task for anyone. Campbell took the challenge and brought back his former senior offensive assistant from the 2022 Lions, John Morton. After a Week 9 home loss to Minnesota, Campbell took over playcalling duties from the first rookie offensive coordinator, relegating Morton to an assistant “collaborative" role.

It seemed like the Campbell lightning bolt jolt was the right in the short term, but consider the defenses Detroit was powering over. In Week 10, they put up 546 total yards and 44 points against a Washington Commanders team that ranks 31st defensively. The smoke-and-mirrors offensive confidence continued, bolstered by beating up on bad NFC East defenses. Campbell’s offense scored 34 in a near-OT loss to the New York Giants, and 44 in a win over the Dallas Cowboys’ 30th-ranked defense.

Week 16 was a rude awakening when the Lions struggled to move the ball against the 28th-ranked Pittsburgh Steelers defense in a crucial, near-must-win situation.

Under Campbell’s offensive watch, established, complex defenses held the Lions to 43 points over three games (all losses): the Vikings, Green Bay Packers, and Eagles.

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Sheppard’s Sheepish Stopping Power

The defense has to shoulder some of the blame for the Lions’ collapse. Sure, they’ve seen their share of injuries, but who hasn’t by the second half of the season? The San Francisco 49ers lost Fred Warner and Nick Bosa, but they are still in a spot to take the No. 1 seed in the NFC, and HC Kyle Shanahan is near the top of the odds board for Coach of the Year (+220).

Rookie DC, Kelvin Sheppard, was also promoted by Campbell. Sheppard moved up the Lions chain from outside linebackers coach to linebackers coach to watching the defense go from allowing the seventh-fewest points last season to ranking 23rd, giving up 24.8 PPG in 2025.

Detroit has been anything but smash-mouth against the run, ranking 17th on the season, allowing 117.6 rushing yards per game. These numbers are magnified during the Lions’ three-game losing skid, where each win was sorely needed. Sheppard’s defense looked more like sheep, sleeping their way to allowing 182.3 rushing yards per game, second-most in the NFL over that span.

My Final Verdict

Dan Campbell came on the head coaching scene with an attitude, swagger, and toughness that seemed to fit a working-class comeback city like Detroit. Sure, outsiders played the biting knee caps clip on repeat, asking “Who is this guy?", but a swift kick in the tailpipe was what this Motor Town franchise needed. With 14 wins over the previous three seasons before Campbell arrived, the Lions were heading back to the mid-80s and early 2000s laughing-stock eras once again.

Campbell turned things around swiftly from a three-win team in his 2021 debut season to an NFC Championship appearance in 2023, and then the franchise’s most wins in a single season last year. The turnaround is impressive, but the Lions blew a 17-point halftime lead, and Campbell made a pair of questionable fourth-down calls that cost them a Super Bowl appearance. A Divisional Round exit followed last year’s record-breaking regular season, courtesy of a home loss as big favorites over the upstart Jayden Daniels-led Washington Commanders, which was the biggest upset of the playoffs.

Now, two second-half-of-the-season losses to division rival Minnesota, a three-game slide, and a 3-6 mark down the stretch have Detroit regressing for a third straight year.

In the NFL, windows close as quickly as they open, and with the talent on this roster, there is no excuse for an 8-8 mark heading into the season finale.

In Campbell’s knee-bite presser in 2021, he said, “When you punch us back, we’re going to smile at you, and when you knock us down, we’re going to get up." Detroit was doing too much smiling and not enough, knocking down and getting back up in 2025.

With that, the Lions have to make the difficult decision to knock Campbell down, wish him well, and get back up without him in 2026.