> # The genius of Dan Campbell: ‘He’s the best leader I’ve ever been around’
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“For a while, he was playing into it,” Goff says. “‘So what, people think I’m a meathead? They think I’m stupid? Good. I hope they do.’
“I’ve been around a lot of really, really smart coaches in this league,” the QB continues. “He’s right there with them.”
One difference?
“He’s very secure in who he is,” Goff says. “There’s a lot of coaches who aren’t.”
“This is how smart he is,” Decker says, speaking on the same topic. “In our meetings the day before a game, he tells us exactly how we’re gonna win. And a day later that’s usually what happens. You know how easy it is to buy into that?
“He’s the best leader I’ve ever been around. So f— what everybody else thinks. I wouldn’t wanna play for any other head coach.”
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Coaches who lose 19 of their first 24 games aren’t supposed to say things like, “It doesn’t matter if you have one ass cheek and three toes, I’ll beat your ass.” But Campbell was saying that when the Lions weren’t beating anyone’s ass.
“People were pointing at him and laughing,” left tackle Taylor Decker remembers.
That first season ate at him. One week, Campbell was in tears at the podium. The next, he called out his quarterback. “That’s not a professional head coach,” Hall of Famer Cris Carter said on “Good Morning Football” a day later. “That’s an amateur head coach.”
Now they’re not sure they can trust him. Not in big moments. They’re worried a mix of aggression and ambition will sabotage everything Campbell’s built and cost the Lions a chance at doing what no one ever thought they would. The coach is a late-game liability, some believe. A reckless renegade.