Campbell’s Straight Talk Has Inspired His Players and Captured the Nation’s Attention
1/23/24 – – On Sunday, the Detroit Lions will play the San Francisco 49ers for the NFL’s National Football Conference Championship and a trip to the Super Bowl. The 49ers are favored by oddsmakers, but the Lions have won the hearts of fans across the country, thanks in large part to the team’s in-your-face, plain-speaking, take-no-prisoners head coach Dan Campbell.
He’s no Demosthenes, but communicators can learn a lot from Campbell’s messaging and delivery, which stand in bold contrast to the rehearsed, over-nuanced speech we’re hearing from too many corporate, academic and political leaders.
Here’s the backstory.
At a press conference three years ago, January 21, 2021, Campbell was introduced as the Lion’s new head coach. One of the most beleaguered teams in the National Football League, the Lions had not won a championship since 1957 or a playoff game since 1991. Campbell was seen by most fans and the media as just another bad hire by the team’s owners, the Ford family.
But when Campbell stepped behind the podium, you could sense a feeling of hope in the room. Right out of central casting, Campbell is 6’5” and weighs 250 pounds. His bearded, chiseled face is punctuated by piercing eyes that glare with extraordinary intensity. You can tell that when he enters a locker room and says, “listen up,” everyone listens up.
Displaying a high level of emotional intelligence (a critical leadership skill), he opened his remarks by making the challenge he was accepting bigger than himself. He likened the team’s predicament to that of its home city, Detroit. Both are determined underdogs:
“This team is going to take on the identity of this city. This city has been down and it’s found a way to get up, it’s found a way to overcome adversity.”
Having played for the Lions from 2006 – 2008, his knowledge of and concern for Detroit were accepted as sincere. The tough, resilient city has been battling its way back from an unrivaled fall from prosperity, its population declining from 1.8 million at its peak in 1950 to fewer than 650,000 today. Campbell was going to tap into the city’s “never say die” mentality.
What he said next, without a trigger warning, broke the internet:
“We’re going to kick you in the teeth. When you punch us back, we’re going to smile at you. And when you knock us down, we’re going to get up, and on the way up, we’re going to bite a kneecap off. And we’re going to stand up, and it’s going to take two more shots to knock us down, alright, and on the way up, we’re going to take your other kneecap. And we’re going to get up and it’s going to take three shots to get us down and when we get up we’re going to take another hunk out of you.
“Before long, we’re going to be the last one standing.”
USA Today called him a “meathead.” He was likened on social media to Fred Flintstone. Snarky observers compared his unbridled press conference comments to the pep talk given by Bluto Blutarsky (played by John Belushi) in the movie Animal House to his fraternity brothers when it looked like they were all going to be expelled from college: “Was it over when the Germans bombed Pearl Harbor? Hell no!”
But Detroiters were heartened by Campbell’s passion and commitment. So were the players. And here we are, building upon an improbable, magical 12-5 season, the Lions have already ended three decades of futility, winning two playoff games and earning a shot at the Super Bowl.
Of course, Campbell’s communications style can be over the top and is not right for everybody. Case in point; this colorful diatribe delivered last year by Campbell on the HBO series “Hard Knocks”:
“We’ll play on grass. We’ll play on turf. We’ll go to a f***ing landfill. It doesn’t matter. Doesn’t matter if you have one ass cheek and three toes, I will beat your ass.”
Probably not the type of language or analogy a CEO or college president should use. But Campbell’s level of authenticity and unfiltered humanity (he has cried on camera after victories) has resonated with the public in the Motor City and beyond.
So, if you tune into the game on Sunday, observe the leadership style of this guy who has broken through the noise and is fighting for more than a football championship. He’s fighting for a city.
And if you’re a 49ers player, don’t forget to wear your knee pads!
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