He arrived with a bang, fueled by a vow to bite kneecaps. Three years later, he has transformed the perpetually dysfunctional Detroit Lions into one of the finest franchises in all of football.
And, yes, the Lions were supposed to be good. Usually, the coach of the year is the coach of the team that surprised everyone the most. Under that standard, it’s Vikings coach Kevin O’Connell.
But we need to move past the “coach of the biggest surprise” standard and give the award to the best coach of the year. The Lions fought through injuries and delivered fifteen wins, a franchise record. Campbell was true to himself all year long, using his hard-nosed, dip-in-his-cheek authenticity and a take-no-prisoners mindset to galvanize the locker room and make the Lions believe that it’s their destiny to win it all.
Could stubborn adherence to who he is and what he does catch up to Campbell in the postseason? Possibly. But this is a regular-season award.
And in the biggest regular-season game in years, Campbell prevailed over O’Connell.
It was close. Entering Week 18, it was essentially a dead heat. Game No. 272 ended up being the tiebreaker.
O’Connell might win the coach of the year award that matters far more than this one, if enough of the voters don’t break from the usual test for picking a coach of the year. I did. We did. For putting together a gritty, grind-it-out, more-close-calls-than-blowouts effort despite a critical mass of injuries to win the No. 1 seed in the NFC, the award goes to Campbell.
Others who merit a mention include Broncos coach Sean Payton, who led the Broncos in his second season to their first playoff berth since 2015. Chiefs coach Andy Reid cobbled together 15 wins with a Chiefs team that doesn’t seem to be as potent as it has been in recent years, but still might emerge with another Super Bowl win.
And Commanders coach Dan Quinn has transformed the culture in one year, taking the franchise to its most wins since 1991, when the team last won a Super Bowl.
Again, it was close. But it was very hard to give it to O’Connell when the Vikings went 0-2 against the Lions and Campbell.
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