ALLEN PARK — The Detroit Lions are coming off three straight last-place finishes. Teams like that usually have roster issues, and the Lions certainly do too.
But once again, head coach Dan Campbell has raved about the character of the roster assembled by his predecessors, even though it also produced one of the worst ever eras of Lions football.
“I think we’re fortunate because I do believe we have some talented players on this team that have grit, and that’s a good thing, you know?” Campbell said. “I said this when I walked in — there’s a number of guys that were here, and I think (Matt) Patricia and (Bob) Quinn did a great job of, there’s no turds here. There’s no bad guys. These guys work now. We don’t have lazy (guys). We don’t have those (lazy) guys, and that’s a good thing.
“That’s not always the case when it hasn’t been a successful program. Usually that’s not the case. (But) these guys work, and they are. They’re pretty tough-minded. It’s just a matter of, ‘Hey, this is how you got to win. This is what it takes to win. This is what it takes to be a winner. This is what it looks like.’ That’s all it is. Sometimes you just don’t know what you don’t know. That’s all.”
Campbell has touted the importance of grit since the early stages of his hire in Detroit. Asked on Tuesday what’s the most important thing he’s looking for when assembling the 53-man roster, Campbell touted, you guessed it, grit. And now that training camp has advanced to Week 3, he’s getting a much better idea of where he can find it.
The players have been in pads for more than a week, and in camp for two. They’re tired. They’re sore. Now they have to work through it heading into the first preseason game on Friday against the Buffalo Bills, where plenty of jobs — starting and otherwise — will be up for grabs. And which players are able to continue to play tough and consistently through the aches and pains of camp will be a deciding factor in roster cuts later this month.
The Lions have to trim the roster to 85 players by Aug. 17, then 80 players by Aug. 24. The final cut to 53 will be on Aug. 31.
“You’re resilient,” Campbell said, when asked about the most important trait he’s seeking for his roster. “You’re tough, you’re hard-nosed, you’re a guy that your body demeanor never changes (no matter) what happens to you, you’re dependable, you’re accountable. It’s everything that you would want in somebody if you said, ‘I need one guy to do a job for me, this is the guy, because I trust you, I know who you’re going to be every day. You’re not up and down. You’re the same guy every day. We know who you are.’
“Even if that maybe is not quite at the very tip-top (of importance), I’d rather have that because I know what I’m going to get every day, rather than the guy who is, ‘Wow, what a flashy player!’ And then the next day he’s down in the dumps and we don’t know what he’s doing, or something hurts. It’s not worth it. So that would be my No. 1. Now certainly you got to have talent on this team. Not everybody is going to be perfect. But man, you got to have some mental resiliency, some mental fortitude, to play for us and the Detroit Lions. You just do.”
