‘The standard is the standard’: How Dan Campbell’s black culture now fuels itself

ALLEN PARK, Mich. – Linebacker and special-teamer Grant Stuard always goes home feeling worked. Light days don’t exist at the Meijer Performance Center, headquarters of the Lions. Even when practices are short, the mental load is heavy. Every one of Detroit’s assistant coaches upholds the standard Dan Campbell sets, according to Stuard.

“You’re not going to get in the meeting room,” Stuard told me at his locker, “and be like ….” 

The fifth-year pro pauses and then begins to impersonate a disgruntled player. 

“‘I know the head coach said this, but ….’ “No, no, no,” Stuard shook his head. “Everybody is on the same stuff in this joint.”

After three years with the Colts, the 27-year-old joined the Lions in free agency and quickly realized this: Detroit’s success isn’t really about Campbell’s belief. It’s more about the ecosystem in place that incentivizes the team to do the work necessary to believe in itself. 

“If he sees a guy give low effort but they’re making $30 million a year,” Stuard said, “he’s not going to not say something because, ‘Oh they’re making $30 million. Let me not check him in front of everybody.’ No.

“The standard is the standard. That’s what I can appreciate.”

It’s a culture that explains Detroit’s continued success under Campbell. 

Despite the departure of star coordinators Ben Johnson and Aaron Glenn in the offseason, the Lions haven’t lost a step, remaining a Super Bowl contender in 2025. They’ve won five of their past six games entering Sunday’s matchup with the division rival Minnesota Vikings (1 p.m. ET on FOX). 

Look beyond the imposing figure and the colorful quotes about biting kneecaps. The Lions, once a broken franchise, feed off Campbell’s intellect and authenticity. 

“When you’re in this business and it’s such a long season, [don’t] Get lost in the present moment, accept it as it is, and try to be as consistent as possible every day. I’d like to believe that’s what it is [the team has] Drawn [from me]”It’s a new day,” Campbell said earlier in October. Fix what needs to be fixed. And nothing is as bad as it seems. Nothing is as good as it seems. Just take it for what it is.”

“He doesn’t go anywhere without direction.”

Dan Skipper has made it clear with his words and demeanor that we – anyone outside the team facility – truly Miss when Campbell is working on the drawing board.

It will reveal a new attack vulnerability, for example. Sometimes, those wrinkles will include a 6-foot-9, 334-pound offensive lineman lining up as an eligible receiver on a trick play. In the beginning, as a player, you’re just trying to follow through and take it all in.

Then you realize why you will succeed.

“I don’t know that I want to be on his mind all the time,” Skipper, the veteran player, said with a laugh. “Seeing it, it’s like I don’t know.” You go there on game planning days, and you start seeing some of the stuff he wrote. “Okay, well, if you do this and this and this, and they show us this, and this and this…” I mean, I play the tape and it works fine and it shows on game day. There are a lot of subtle things that pay off. “He’s very impressive when it comes to that.”

Every Lions player I spoke to raved about Campbell’s intelligence, and how calculated he was.

You can’t hide from it as a player. He watches every representative from every practice on offense, defense and special teams. He knows the intricacies and responsibilities of every position, not just the position he played in the NFL for a decade.

Stuard describes his attention to detail as “exhaustive.”

“He doesn’t go anywhere without direction,” DJ Reader told me. “He always has a plan and where he wants to go. He helps us as players see the vision more clearly. He doesn’t go out there and throw things on the board and say, ‘This is what we’re going to do.’ He always has in-depth details about why we do what we do.”

“I think that’s huge, because as a player, you don’t want to get lost and lead into something that you don’t necessarily believe in. When you hear him talk about it, you hear how smart he is, how deep he is, how much he really thinks about it. And that gives you another respect for him.”

Many Lions players say Campbell has a knack for knowing when to say things and how to say them. When to push your buttons and when to hold back. When to address or keep personal matters in football.

He will reduce the number of training sessions if necessary, knowing where the players are physically. After Detroit lost to Kansas City in Week 6, Campbell pointed out some mistakes the team made on film. But it wasn’t a “call the players” way, according to linebacker Alex Anzalone. It was more of a “You can do better than this.”

“He has very high emotional intelligence,” Anzalone told me.

The reader recalls the time Campbell approached him on the sideline during a game.

“I remember complaining about a call,” the 10th-year veteran reader said. “He says, ‘Okay, DJ, what are you going to do about it?’ I had to check myself in that moment, like, “Damn, what am I going to do about this?” “I can’t sit here and complain about that.”

“He’s just one of those guys that you can tell when he’s your coach, he’s got your back, he’s going to fight to the end for you. I think that’s a great dope.”

“He will always shoot you straight.”

When I initially asked Skipper what set him apart from Campbell, the first thing he mentioned was the coach’s honesty.

“It’s not always easy to hear the truth,” Skipper said. “When you know where you stand with someone, it gives you an inherent level of respect.”

Then Skipper paused for a few seconds.

“There was a time when he told me I would never come back here, and he never saw me coming back to play here,” said Skipper, who had several stints with the Lions. “I ended up going back and everything else, but that was hard to hear, wasn’t it?… That was the truth at the time. Obviously things have changed, and I ended up here, but that’s just the way he is. He’ll always shoot you straight. You’ll never have to ask where something is. You can ask him straight, and he’ll give you a straight answer.”

Like his communications, Campbell’s forecasts are clear and direct.

“Not every team has star receivers blocked. Like, Saint (Amon-Ra Saint Brown) is going to go out there and put you in the dirt, you know what I mean?” The reader told me. “Jamu (Jameson Williams) will try to put you in the dirt. The starting tight end, (Sam) LaPorta, will try to put you in the dirt.

“You don’t have that at every position on most teams,” Reeder continues. “I think that’s what makes this place special. A lot of people say that and expect it to happen, but they’ll call a play and take the guy out. [They’ll say,] “I don’t want him to get hurt about this.” Not in his case. He says: No, you have to get it finished.’ …That means something to me.

This is Campbell’s criterion.

Ben Arthur is an NFL reporter for FOX Sports. He previously worked for the Tennessean/USA TODAY Network, where he was a program director Titans The writer won for a year and a half. He covered Seattle Seahawks For SeattlePI.com for three seasons (2018-20) before moving to Tennessee. You can follow Ben on Twitter at @bennyarthur.

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