The Detroit Lions are a football team that has been constructed as well as any across the league.
Despite a rash of injuries, the team has still been able to rattle off eight consecutive wins.
General manager Brad Holmes and head coach Dan Campbell have been working together for four years and have the Lions as one of the teams in the conversation to win the Super Bowl.
During his Friday media session, Detroit's popular head coach was asked a series of questions regarding scouting players, the importance of communication and if there was a question that meant the most when he had an opportunity to speak to draft prospects.
“I don’t know if there’s a question. Look, let me go to the – Brad (Holmes) does a hell of a job. There’s a lot of people involved, but I’m always going to tell you, I think Brad is a master evaluator," said Campbell. "And I just think – and it starts with him and then it just kind of permeates, obviously, because he’s the leader of that group throughout the scouts and personnel department.
"So, he’s got a real good way about him, about figuring guys out," Campbell continued. "But I also love – the tape speaks for itself. The tape is louder than anything else. It really is, and then you just kind of get around them a little bit, ask them a few things, but I can’t tell you that there’s one question that’s going to nail it or not nail it.”
For Campbell, being able to speak to a player in a way that facilities growth and learning is one of the primary tasks of being a head coach in the National Football League.
"That is job number one for the coaches, for us as coaches, is we have to find a way to (figure out) ‘What is the best way for them to learn? What is the best way to motivate them?’ You don’t always know, you get a guy, he’s got a lot of talent, well why doesn’t it work out? If you really believe in the coaches you have and what you’re teaching and how you’re going about it, if they don’t make it, it’s too much pressure and they just can’t get over it, the anxiety of it for whatever reason, or they just – they don’t care enough about it," Campbell said. "Most of the time that’s kind of what happens, it’s one or the other.
"This is a hard business. You’re around the best of the best and not everybody can do it no matter how talented you are and you see a slew of guys every year, the amount of talent and they just can’t get it. But us as coaches, we have to find a way to communicate and whatever it takes to do that.”
