Pressers and scrums: Campbell's early-career lesson about complacency

Justin Rogers | Detroit Football Network

Allen Park – Sitting in the office of then managing editor, now publisher Gary Miles while nearing the finish line of my interview process at the Detroit News seven years ago, we discussed the challenges of standing out from the crowded media landscape while covering the Detroit Lions. 

I noted one of the most difficult aspects of the job is making sure you're doing more than eating out of the trough. The trough is easy. It's writing almost exclusively off press conferences and scrums, when large groups of media gather around a single player. You don't even have to ask a question in those settings and you can easily produce plenty of content. Trust me, there are days I’ve done it during some of those long, loss-filled Decembers.

As a beat writer, you also can't ignore the trough. Typically, the only on-record interactions we get with coach Dan Campbell, his coordinators, or GM Brad Holmes are in press conference settings. That's the daily path to insight from the organization's leadership, while scrums almost always form around the roster's top players. Want to talk to Jared Goff or Aidan Hutchinson? It’s most likely happening with a dozen other reporters huddled shoulder to shoulder.

For what it's worth, I might be the biggest supplier of slop to the this particular trough. Question-asking was an area where I tried to set myself apart as a young reporter, and I take a great deal of pride in formulating interesting, unique and challenging questions in a way that generates thoughtful answers. My hit rate is far from perfect, but I'd put it against anyone's in the room. 

Yeah, it's frustrating to ask a good question, get a better answer, and watch everyone write the story you thought up. But that's the way it goes. On the flip side, I've never hesitated writing a meaningful story on a topic or quote generated from another reporter's question. That happens every day. But a big part of what I'm trying to do here, at the Detroit Football Network, is continue my career-long efforts to not overly rely on the trough. 

I'm still not going to ignore it, and I'm sure as sure as hell not going to stop asking questions in press conferences, even if I'm surrendering control of my story ideas to the room. That said, I no longer have the same content obligations, required to produce a quota to ensure the print product doesn't have blank pages. I don't have to write all the little things, often inconsequential that I might have at my previous stops, allowing me to focus more on developing unique content from one-on-one interviews and data-driven analysis. 

With that in mind, I thought the best way to handle the trough might be a daily post, recapping the day’s press conferences and scrums, providing a bite-sized recap of the happenings in Allen Park. It's an experiment, which admittedly may or may not stick.  

*** Asked how the team was able to carry its strong finish in 2022 into last season, and what lessons that offered coming into this year's expectation-laden campaign, Campbell talked about the value of continuity, but also consistency. 

The coach shared an example of a team from his past, one he didn't want to identify, but was clearly the 2000 and 2001 New York Giants, which sputtered to a 7-9 record the year after losing in the Super Bowl. 

"Here’s one of the best things that ever happened to me, is I was a part of a team that, man, we did something really special," Campbell said. "We came up a little short, and the next year we had the exact same team. The exact same team.

"I just remember there were a couple of things (the next season), ‘Hey guys, we’re not going to go pads today,'" Campbell continued. "Everybody goes, ‘Yeah, all right!’ You know, those things, ‘Hey, this is great. Hey guys, get out of here a little bit early.’ And pretty soon, by the end of it, you just lost your identity and everything that made you what you are. You went away from it because, ‘You know what? We’ll be OK. We’ve got the same guys.’ And that was a lesson learned for me because we were average. We went 7-9 the next year after going 12-4 and I will never forget that, ever. So, we’re not going to lose our identity. That is the most important thing to me, and I won't sacrifice it for anyone or anything."

The Lions went through a similar situation in 2012. After going 10-6 and making the playoffs for the first time in more than a decade, the team appeared to be on the rise. The roster remained remarkably similar the following year, outside the modest additions of offensive tackle Riley Reiff in the draft and cornerback Jacob Lacey in free agency, before floundering to a 4-12 record. 

While staying true to your identity, which in Detroit is grit and hard work, I asked Campbell if there is also a lesson about making sure to inject a good amount of fresh blood into the roster each offseason.

“It’s important," Campbell said. "You get these guys that are jockeying for a chance to get a starting position or playing time, and man, they are young, fresh and hungry. Absolutely, it’s important. Look, there is no substitute for competition. The ultimate motivator is the competition."

*** The NFC Championship loss to San Francisco continues to come up quite a bit, but running back David Montgomery wasn't biting. Of course, that loss continues to drive the veteran, but he said he hasn't watched the game again for added fuel. 

"Not at all," Montgomery said. "It happened. It was over, gotta get to the next game."

*** Campbell's messaging about the roster not losing its identity was echoed by team leaders Amon-Ra St. Brown and Taylor Decker. 

"There's no substitute for the work," Decker said. "The work is the work. You have to come out here and build chemistry, continue with chemistry as a team. We have a lot of chemistry, but we also have new pieces. If we can build on the foundation, it's not like we're building on last season, it's going to be a brand new season."

St. Brown added, "I think for us, to do the same thing and expect different results is crazy, right? So we gotta do more than we did last year. Whatever we did last year wasn’t enough, obviously. Learn from our mistakes. I think that’s a big thing is we can’t make the same mistake twice. And then going harder, whether that’s in the meeting room, the weight room, out on the field, special teams, offense, defense, everything. We just gotta go harder. We have to just do more than we did last year."

*** On Tuesday, during the unveiling of a sponsorship resulting in the renaming of the practice facility to the Meijer Performance Center, team president Rod Wood mentioned a $4 million upgrade to the building's training room. Decker raved about the changes. 

"No. 1, they're fantastic," Decker said. "I don't know if you guys have seen the training room. …Incredible. As a player, it's just cool to see them reinvest in the players, like, 'We're going to give more back to you, we're going to get the best that we always can for you and always try and improve and get better,' because that's what we do out here. We're trying to get better every single day. And we know they're trying to get better in this building for us so we can succeed and get better."