Dan Campbell leads Taylor Decker and the Detroit Lions to the NFC Championship Game
On a recent episode of Bleav in Lions, Jack and Glover talk to Lions Tackle Taylor Decker. It’s been a long road for Decker, and the Lions as a whole. Things got bad after a successful rookie season ending in a Wild Card loss to the Seattle Seahawks in 2016. Detroit would go 23-34 over the next four years under Jim Caldwell and Matt Patricia. “There were definitely a lot of days where it would be hard to come into work because ultimately you are what your record says you are. I view myself as a winner, but your record says you’re a loser then you’re a loser”, Decker told the Bleav in Lions Podcast. “We needed a big change and that’s what happened when we hired Dan.”
A phone call from Coach Campbell early in his tenure stood out to the veteran LT. “One thing about Dan is he does a phenomenal job of connecting with everybody on a personal level… In a relationship-based business, when you have trust and you know that your coach wants the best for you and wants to put you in a position to succeed the sky can be the limit. Because that guy has my back.”
Vegas may say that the Lions are underdogs against the 49ers, but Decker says they don’t feel that way. “We’re in this game because we earned our way into this game… and there’s something cool about going on the road and it’s us versus all of them. Everybody… it’s hostile and that’s fun.” The Detroit Lions are ready to embrace the role of villain in San Francisco and bring the NFC Championship home to the fans for the first time.
If you listen to Taylor Decker speak, just know you will be hyped up and ready to run through a brick wall the rest of the day. The Detroit Lions are 7-point underdogs against the San Francisco 49ers in the NFC Championship on Sunday.
