Everything Dan Campbell Said After Lions Defeated Jaguars

Dan Campbell's team improves to 9-1.

Detroit Lions head coach Dan Campbell hugs Jacksonville Jaguars Doug Pederson after 52-6 win / Junfu Han / USA TODAY NETWORK via Imagn Images

Here is everything Dan Campbell said after the Detroit Lions defeated the Jacksonville Jaguars, 52-6, to improve to 9-1 this season.

Opening Statement

"Listen, really proud of the guys. Talked about when you have a group of guys that, we’ve got football players, talented football players, and they’re made of the right stuff, and then they come together, there’s a collective willpower that I think they can use together and I really felt like we pulled on each other today, and really played some of our best ball up to date. That was – satisfying always to get a win in this league, cause they’re hard to come by. But, when you feel like you play up to your potential in all areas, it’s a really good feeling. So, it was an outstanding effort by a ton of people, a ton of players, coaches did a great job of having them ready. It was. We were proud of that win last week that was hard-fought, but we also wanted to get that bad taste out of our mouth, and we did that today. So, it’s outstanding.”

On Jared Goff’s performance today, after throwing five interceptions in last week’s game: “Yeah, I mean he’s, once again, he continues to play at a high level. I mentioned this just a minute ago. There’s a ton of things I appreciate about him, but one of them is that, whatever it was or wasn’t last week – and I said this, he didn’t play a bad game. Those circumstances and what went down were just, I mean, it was bizarre. But, I know for him, it’s like, ‘Look whatever it is or isn’t, I’m going to play better.’ And, he was locked in like he’s been, and you just had that feeling, man. Offense, collectively, I just felt like we were going to be in a good place, and credit to the coaches, but those guys, they took ownership in it. And, they wanted to finish better, collectively, and finish down the field, and make plays, and be productive, be efficient, and we did that. But, (Jared) Goff, I thought Goff was outstanding, once again. And so no, I’m not surprised. That’s the type of player we have, and that’s the type of football he’s been playing, for a while now. So, he’s a stud.”

On whether the team played angrily today: "Oh, I think we really – there was so much of the focus was about we wanted to make sure we established an aggressive style. Our aggressive style of football, and we really wanted to finish, and so much of it was about – it was really the focus, above anything else, was about our effort, just finishing. I want you to be able to turn the tape on, and your teammate to watch the play that you’re doing, and say, ‘Man, that guy is finishing for me. Now, I trust that guy.' And, that was kind of the message, ‘Man, finish for the guy next to you, and give everything you’ve got.’ If we can all look at each other tomorrow, in the eyes, and say, ‘I gave you what I had,’ that’s always going to be a good thing. And, they did that.”

On how he decides when to take key players out of the game when winning by a wide margin: “There’s nothing easy about it. This is a weird – this is another one of those bizarre things that you’re running into. Normally, this doesn’t happen. It’s just like the third time this has come up this season, which, it’s a good problem to have. There’s a number of things, and I think you want to know that you finish on a good note, you found a rhythm, you keep the rhythm, ‘OK, now the time says, let’s get them out.’ What’s hard is, you’re playing pretty good, and then you take this dip, and then it starts to taste bad, ‘OK, now we pull them out, because we don’t want to get anybody hurt, and then does that bleed into the next week?’ So, some of those come in, and I think you’ve just got to feel it out. That last one, I told those guys, after the last touchdown we had, I don’t know what it was, 13 minutes left, ‘Let’s get them out.’ We played pretty good, we finished on a high note. Touchdown, defensively we got a stop, and we started pulling guys. You’ve got to make the most of it. There again, I mean, even at the end, OK, you pull (Amon-Ra) St. Brown out, we started to lose –  (Allen Robinson) 'A-Rob' gets hurt, but he’s back. We didn’t want to use Brock (Wright), well we had to use Brock again. And so, you start playing this, this is, you just, you’ve got to do what you’ve got to do to finish the game out, and you can only worry so much about it. And even there, it’s like, you’d love to get (Penei) Sewell out, but we only have three linemen at the game, and reserves, and you take out your oldest guys, your most veteran guys, or the guys who maybe are dinged up a little bit. You do the best you can with it.”

Detroit Lions quarterback Jared Goff (16) talks to Jacksonville Jaguars quarterback Trevor Lawrence (16) / Junfu Han / USA TODAY NETWORK via Imagn Images

Detroit Lions head coach Dan Campbell watches a play against Jacksonville Jaguars during the second half / Junfu Han/USA TODAY Network via Imagn Images

On whether the offense is back to its dominant ways: “Yeah, I would say that. Look, everybody on offense is going to get a game ball for that. I mean, that, that was – you get over 600 yards of offense, and you’re whatever that was – five-of-five in the redzone, third down was outstanding, I don’t know how many explosives we had, but we had a ton, and then the first downs, 30-something first downs. I mean, that’s just, that’s a collective effort, that takes a lot of guys to be able to do that. But, we have, we’ve got power up front, with our O-line, and we’ve got some serious juice in the backfield, in the perimeter, and we’ve got the right balance of electricity, and just whatever you want to call it. Sledgehammer, I don’t know.”

On the performance of the defense: “Yeah, 170 yards too only given up. Got our takeaway, we were talking about getting our takeaway – Kerby (Joseph) got us one, which is great. That kind of finished it out for us. Stopped the run. I’m telling you, this was a collective effort, everybody did their job. When you’re able to get a stop on defense, score seven, get another stop, score seven, you put a tremendous amount of pressure on the opponent, and you put them in a place they don’t want to be in. That’s hard. It’s hard. Let me say this too, let me go back to that, because here’s what I want. I do not want to let the fear of injury take away from our identity. That’ll always be most important to me. More so, the minute you start worrying about injuries, that’s when bad things happen, so that’s kind of – I’ll finish with that. It was on my mind.”

On whether he thinks this offense is as good as some of the best offenses in NFL history: “I think we have that ability, I really do. I think we have that ability. We have, to me, we have everything that we need to be potent, and like I say, I feel like we’re well-rounded. When you’re able to run the ball with the big boys up front, you’ve got a hammer like David (Montgomery), and you’ve got electric, this electricity with (Jahmyr) Gibbs, and you’ve got (Jameson Williams) 'Jamo' on the perimeter, and then you’ve got our rock (Amon-Ra) St. Brown who just continues to make plays – you put him anywhere you want to put him, and you need it, he’s got it. And then running the whole show is (Jared) Goff. I think, I think we’re – yeah, I mean, I think we can be dangerous. We have that ability because, really, we can play the game anyway we need to, as long as we’re on our stuff, we’re on our game, and we’re locked in, and we’re finishing. We can do that.”

On whether there is a best strategy for offensive production when the team has been off the mark: “No. I mean, look, I think sometimes it can come up to matchups. You do the best you can with the matchups you have, right? But, you get in a bad spot with somebody on third down and all of the sudden they get pressure on the quarterback or, ‘We thought this guy could beat press,’ he got hemmed up, it’s an incompletion, or Goff just, maybe, happened to miss it which doesn’t happen much, and then, OK, you had to punt it, and then what happened, ‘Well did we give up a touchdown on defense?’ You get in one of those, all of the sudden you’re down. Things happen in this League, they do. Or what happened last week with, we get a ball batted, it’s an interception, so those things are always going to be there. It’s about overcoming them, but when we do things right, and everybody’s doing their job, and doing it at the highest level they can do it, and I’m talking about coaches and players, I think we’re difficult to stop, collectively, offense, defense, special teams. I think we’re a tough team.”

On whether this is the best team performance since he has been with the Lions: “Yeah, probably so. For this year, for sure. It’s tough to say. We played pretty good two years ago against Jacksonville here. I don’t know what that was, but yeah. I mean, probably top to bottom, this is probably the best game. Offense, defense, special teams, everything, it was pretty good. We did what we needed to do on both sides of the ball.”

On an injury update for Lions LB Alex Anzalone: “No. He’s not. Looks like he broke the forearm, so he’s going to be out six-eight weeks.”