Lions' Campbell bemoans overloading roster, plans to dial things back as team tries to rediscover it's bread and butter

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Allen Park — Like any football coach worth a damn, Dan Campbell shouldered the blame after Sunday’s season-opening loss to the Green Bay Packers.

But, often, those words can ring hollow. Some Detroit Lions fans probably wake up in a cold sweat thinking about the previous guy pointing the finger at himself after each of the 29 losses he racked up in three seasons.

To Campbell’s credit, he was more specific about why he felt he let the team down on Sunday.

“We had some miscommunications, some MAs (missed assignments), that really cost us at the worst times, a couple of penalties that bit us,” Campbell said. “It just wasn’t clean. We didn’t play well. …We’ve got a lot of things where just fundamentally we were off. We’ve got to get our fundamentals back, we’ve got to go back to work because it really is that simple. Nothing’s easy about it, but it’s that simple to diagnose.

“That was really the story…,” Campbell said. “We just didn’t have enough good performances, and really, we didn’t coach well enough. That obviously starts with me. We had a lot of MAs, so that tells me that we had too much on their plate, which that’s my fault.”

After six weeks of training camp, three joint practices and four preseason games, Campbell thought his roster could handle more going into the opener. In hindsight, he acknowledges the miscalculation, particularly with some of the team's youth at some key spots not being ready for the mental load put on them.

“We had some young guys that struggled yesterday,” Campbell said. “I certainly didn’t go in and think it would be the best performance they would have all year, but it wasn’t good enough. The good news is there’s nowhere to go but up, and up we will go. They’ll only get better with banked reps.”

Heading into Week 2 against the Chicago Bears, Campbell intends to scale things back to reduce the unforced errors and help accelerate figuring out the 2025 roster's identity.

“You really don’t know what you are until Week 5. Week 4, Week 5, maybe Week 6, somewhere in there, as to what you really can hang your hat on,” Campbell said. “Now as far as our core principles and what I believe in, no, we’ll continue to drive that home and get better in that area, or we’ll do what we have to do to tweak a few things.”

Those core principles include establishing the run, which the Lions were unable to do against the Packers. The two-headed backfield of David Montgomery and Jahmyr Gibbs averaged just 2.2 yards per carry in the loss.

On Monday, Campbell praised the target of fan frustrations, first-year coordinator John Morton, noting he was limited by the poor execution of the ground game.

“I would tell you this, first of all, I thought he did good,” Campbell said.

Yeah, there are a couple of things that he wants back, certainly. But we’ve got to master bread and butter before you get to all the other stuff. …The other stuff won’t matter if we can’t find a way to run the football more than 2.1 per carry. That’s where everything starts for us. If we can’t, then you’re out of play-action, you’re out of everything. Guys pin their ears back and that makes it harder on some of those guys up front. That’s where it all begins, really.”

One adjustment fans should expect to see in Week 2 is more of receiver Isaac TeSlaa. The rookie logged just three snaps in his debut, but was the recipient of Detroit’s only touchdown, a remarkable one-handed grab in the closing minutes.

“I think we really wanted to try to get him involved last week but then he got sick and he missed a lot of practice,” Campbell said. “Then we didn’t feel comfortable trying to load him up with stuff, so it was going to be very limited. But certainly, we’d like to use him more. I mean there’s something there. Looks like he’s back and feels pretty good and it was good to see him make a play. …We’re going to start trying to get him some (more) reps.”