When the Detroit Lions walked off the field at Levi's Stadium after the NFC Championship game last year, they were dejected but motivated. In the locker room, Dan Campbell stood in front of everyone and talked about how that might have been their only shot and how much harder it's going to be to get back.
The big thought there is that the Lions aren't surprised anymore. They aren't a secret good team. Everyone knows they're good and they're now the team that is hunted as opposed to the one that's doing the hunting.
The Lions knew that was going to be the case in 2024, they just didn't know they would find that out so early into the year. The Lions went to New Jersey to have joint practices with the New York Giants during training camp and it very quickly turned into a daily Royal Rumble. It was so much that both teams got fined.
That might seem like a forgotten thing now for fans of both teams, but to Dan Campbell, that was a really important few days that the Lions needed and has helped them be the team they are today.
"I felt like the biggest adjustment for us was training camp out at New York, you know, that was the first real taste of, you know, kind of the perception. And, you know, I thought the Giants man, they practiced hard, they brought it, you know, it was a lot of energy, a lot of juice. And I thought that was good for us to get that and it's like now, you know what it's going to be like all season, and we've handled it. I mean, we handle it well. We know we're going to get everybody's best shot."
The Lions have definitely received everyone's best shot for sure and they're going to continue to do that the rest of the way. The Commanders are a tough team and they want the same thing the Lions want. We'll see who gets it on Saturday night.
