Lions Dan Campbell Updates Taylor Decker Status for Bears + Talks Ben Johnson Bag of Tricks

Lions HC Dan Campbell feeling good about Taylor Decker vs Bears: “I can’t give you a definitive yes”

“We’ve got a menu, a very large menu of things,” Campbell said of the trick plays Johnson could conceivably pull out of his bag of tricks. “There can be anything. We’ll be good. You can’t sit there and paralyze yourself with what if, what if, what if. The most important thing is, you get in trouble if you can’t handle the nuts and bolts of an offense. If you can’t stop the run, we bleed out explosives, then that’s where you can get in trouble. I’m not worried about the other stuff.”

via #Lions

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Yeah. Well, I he he’s got a little bit of something here. Um, you know, and so we’re just trying to buy him some time here to, you know, to where he feels better and and then a lot of it too is the luxury of Decker’s played a lot of football, you know, and uh and so he he’ll be ready, you know, he’ll be ready as long as, you know, it feels right. So, um but yeah, we we feel good right now and and there again, we we still got another day here and we’ll see. So, I can’t give you a definitive yes, but you know, it’s where it’s at. Related to the uh the offseason surgery and is it a concern if so? I’m not sure on that. Not sure. And you went into the season with Jamarco as kind of earning that the swing tackle job obviously unfortunate situation with him. Um you know, what’s the the comfort level if you need to call Gio into a game right now to you know, whether it’s to to start or to to fill in for Decker? Yeah. Well, he he’s going he’s going to have to be ready, you know, and he knows that. He’s been getting reps all week. So, you know, he’ll uh I did think he practiced better these last two days, which is good. And uh you know, it it uh he’s part of a whole unit. He’s part of all five of those guys up there. So, um he’ll be ready. John did mention, you know, you’d be prepared if that situation came, you know, in terms of giving him help. How much does that change a game plan when you go from, you know, a veteran like Decker that has the level of experience that you mentioned to a guy that has none, frankly? Yeah, I mean, it does. It changes, you know, uh it changes some things. Um, you know, but I think it’s like anything else. You just you got to stay ahead of the sticks, you know, you got to stay uh in manageable situations and you do that. Um, you know, uh, man’s no different than any any player that he’s got he’s got strengths and then he’s got some things that he’s got to continue to work on as he as he grows and develops. So, uh, we’ll use his strengths. You expect Decker to be out there today? What’s that? You expect Decker to be out in practice today? I do not. I do not. You guys played from ahead really and just just for the Deck Deck wants to play. All right. I’m going to make that very clear. Deck wants to play. So, um, so this is about, you know, the long-term season is what this is going to come down to, you know, just as far as, you know, what we do for this one. Um, I was just going to say you guys played from ahead most of the last two years like in the division, you know, with the lead and even though last year was real close, teams were chasing you. Packers are two and0 right now. How much pressure, if any, does that put on the team and does it how do you just maintain your focus on what matters to you if that’s the case? Yeah. No, I I don’t I don’t see that as pressure, you know, and any anything to where I mean, anything we’re forced to compete is a good thing, and I love that, man. And we already knew what we were coming into this year with this division. It’s a tough division, man. There’s good players, there’s good coaches, uh competitive. Um but no, I mean, it’s it’s early in the season. I’ve mentioned this before. at some point every team’s going to hit adversity whether it’s uh early, it’s in the middle of the season, it’s late, and it’s just about playing your best football by the end of the year. And so we can’t worry about the Packers, you know, we can’t worry about Minnesota. We worry about ourselves first and then Chicago because they’re the next opponent. Lingo was inactive uh last game. What are you hoping to see from him before he’s ready to come back out on the field? Yeah, well, I thought he he’s gotten some reps this week, you know, and I thought he had a good week and so um you know, we’ll see what it looks like today, but we like him. We like where he’s at. Looks like he’s physically ready. What kind of progress was he making before the injury last season? He was getting better and better and better. He was really trending in the right way, man. We were uh we liked where he was going. Um we thought he had some flexibility there in the middle. Could play the nose, could play the threes certainly, and then we even put him in big end in situations and then use him on special teams. So, he does have some flexibility and we thought he was trimming the right way and it was one of those, you know, it was a tough injury. Nobody’s more frustrated than he was about it. So, it’s just good to have him back. We saw a lot of frustration when Kelvin Chevrey came out here and was just completely fired up yesterday about, you know, getting her back on track. What have you saw about these coordinators as far as just how they responded to that first week adversity and just tightening up on some of the details. What did you think about how they responded to that this week? Well, they they’ve both been great, man. They they’re what I would expect them to be, man. Let’s let’s worry about us and let’s clean up our own issues. Let’s diagnose the problem. Uh let’s fix it. let’s get better and let’s move on and and I felt like they’ve done that. If Baky progresses to a point where where he can get back, just what kind of boost can he give you on teams both in coverage and and in the return game? Significant. Yeah, he he’s an outstanding special teams player. Significant. What are some of the hallmarks of a defense? Wow. I somebody asked me this the other day and uh uh they play hard, they’re smart, they’re disciplined, they’re aggressive, they’re tough. Um I mean, I think I I stated it all, you know. Uh he he’s an outstanding coach, man. He does it right. He knows how to teach. He knows how to communicate. Uh and he knows how to put those players uh in position to to have success, man. He finds one-on- ones. Mohamd um didn’t get a whole lot of run just because of the weird game flow and the the 48 uh snaps, but you guys were using him a little bit differently with with some of the the nose tackle stuff and passing situations up there. You know, how much more do you want to see maybe him get involved in in the game plan this week? Well, we we we’ve got him in there. You know, we’re going to use him some. Um I don’t know how much, but but certainly he’s earned the right to be out there on the field. You know, we would say that. Uh we thought he had a good camp. He practices his tail off every day, man. He gives you what he’s got. And uh we really felt like the player is better than even last year. And he’s a veteran guy. You know, he’s played in this league a while, but we liked what he gave us last year. And we feel like he was he was better even through camp and to this point. So, we like him there. Again, he can spell U Hutch at the rush. Uh and then we think we can use him on some third down, you know, and look, he plays the run, too, man. He can set an edge now. So, love where he’s at. More on the the pass rush, you know, that’s that’s obviously, you know, a point of emphasis, some urgency there, but when you have a quarterback like Caleb that can escape in so many different ways, how how do you what’s the point of emphasis as a coaching staff on the mental approach of making sure you’re you’re getting after him, but also not letting him escape? That’s the trick, isn’t it? That’s the trick, you know. Uh Caleb’s a a phenomenal athlete. I mean, he is he’s so dangerous uh when he gets out of the pocket and and so if you’re not careful, you’ll paralyze your guys and you’ll just stand there, right? And now he buys time in the pocket. And then if you just you rip and roar and you’re gone and you you open lanes up, well, he’s gone there, too. So, there is a fine balance. We’ve tried to emphasize that. I thought our guys did a really good job yesterday. Um, you know, Kyle Allen gave us some looks, uh, some really good looks, a lot of scramble looks, just, you know, working it and and trying to simulate him as much as possible, which is always going to help, you know. Um, but but that that’s really what you do, man. You you just you’re you’re constantly coaching the balance of the two. That’s what you’re doing. You’re talking about it on tape. You’re doing it in practice. You’re repeating plays. You’re just, you know, but that that is the emphasis. Kyle’s got a little Caleb in his legs, huh? What’s that? So, Kyle’s got a little Caleb in his leg. Well, I’m not saying that, but I but I’m saying it it’s as close a look as we can give where we’re at right now. The other the other aspect of the run game is Swift and you know, I mean, you know, Ben wants to run just like you guys do. Your your run defense was pretty good the other day. Just uh what does Swift do for their running game and how important is it to, you know, make sure that you get that shut down first? Yeah. Well, it’s always that’s the starting point for us. We cannot allow teams to run on us and uh and we we know Swifty. Swiftie is an explosive athlete, man. He finds a crease and he is gone. Powerful legs, um, quick, explosive. So, you know, we we got we got to bottle him up, gang tackle, not let him get going. And, uh, yeah, we we can’t let them we can’t let them establish the ground game. As much as the noise at Lambo um, compounded the communication issues up front, how much will it help just to be on your home field for this one? Oh, it’ll help. Look, first of all, it’s going to help cuz it’s game two, you know, so you shake some of that out of you. you got the first game under your belt, you know, really the first legitimate game where all of our starters have played together and particularly the O line in real live football other than, you know, we did scrimmage um and then the the joint practices um and then you’re back home, you know, you you are in your own element. So, uh verbal comes back into it as opposed to the silent cadence, all those things. So the combination of those two that it will help it will