Dan Campbell Delivers The Most Ridiculous Football Coach Speech Of All Time At Lions Introductory Press Conference
By Michael Hurley, CBS Boston
BOSTON (CBS) -- The Detroit Lions have been very bad for a very long time. Impossibly bad. Historically bad.
Is there any reason to believe that things are going to change now that Dan "Muscle Milk" Campbell has been hired as the 30th head coach in franchise history? NO! Of course not!
Campbell has 12 games of experience as an interim head coach under his belt, having led Miami to a 5-7 record and 18,000 Oklahoma drills back in 2015. The former NFL tight end-turned-jacked polo wearer has since been an assistant to the head coach and tight ends coach in New Orleans.
Is he groomed to be an NFL head coach? Probably not.
Is he going to deliver FACE-SMASHING, ATTENTION-GRABBING, IN-YOUR-GRILL-MIX speeches from behind a podum?
You.
Freaking.
Betcha.
Fittingly, the Dan Campbell era in Detroit opened on the most on-the-nose note possible. It's as if Dan Campbell stepped to the lectern and performed as if he were someone else trying to do a Dan Campbell impression. (Actually, watching it back, I'm not convinced that this wasn't Jeff Bridges.)
The results were incredible:
This place has been kicked, it's been battered, it's been bruised. I could sit up here and give you coachspeak all day long. I could give you, you know, 'Hey, we're going to win this many games.' I can't.
None of that matters, and you guys don't want to hear it anyway.
You've had enough of that [EXPLETIVE!!!!].
Excuse my language.
All right?
Here's what I do know.
At this point, things get really, really, REALLY good.
This team is gonna take on the identity of this city, all right? And this city's been down, and it found a way to get up, all right? It's found a way to overcome adversity. And so this team's going to be built on -- we're going to kick you in the teeth. All right? And when you punch us back, we're going to smile at you.
OK, are you ready for the next part??
Reader, I assure you this: you are not.
Nevertheless, we must proceed.
And when you knock us down, we're gonna get up. And on the way up, we're gonna bite a kneecap off. All right?
And we're gonna stand up. And then it's going to take two more shots to knock us down.
All right?
And on the way up, we're gonna take your other kneecap. And then we're gonna get up. And then it's gonna take three shots to get us down. And when we do, we're gonna take another hunk out of you.
Sir! Mr. Campbell!
WHAT ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT?! You cannot do that, sir!
I probably shouldn't let you finish, Mr. Campbell, because everything you just espoused is very illegal and immoral!
Before long, we're gonna be the last ones standing. All right? That's gonna be the mentality.
Jeez Louise. That is ... A LOT. Not to mention some of the language was COARSE!!!!
Some would argue it's too much. Perhaps a little over-the-top. Maybe slightly aggressive, even for a violent sport like football.
I mean, Daniel, we're biting kneecaps off over here? Are we doing that? Obviously you're speaking metaphorically, but even in a non-literal sense, you sound a bit deranged here, buddy.
But you know? This is football, and it's the buttoned-up NFL, which could use a little excitement. So rather than bully Campbell into speaking like every other coach, or to talk down to reporters for slouching the way Patriots-influenced predecessor Matt Patricia did, let's celebrate the fact that this magnificent weirdo will be speaking into microphones on a regular basis for the sole purpose of entertaining us.
This is a great thing for the NFL.
Now we all just have to watch our own kneecaps.
Read more from Michael Hurley by clicking here. You can email him or find him on Twitter @michaelFhurley.
