Hell no, Josh Allen & Dan Campbell won't change
Calls for the QB to play it safe will get louder at age 30. Critics think the coach should soften camp and, you know, punt occasionally. Neither individual will acquiesce to such absurd demands.
ICYMI:
ALLEN PARK, Mich. — The fastest route from Bills Country to Lions Country is through Canada, but ignore this suggestion on your map app. Stay stateside. The visuals alone are worth the extra hour, from the destruction of one stadium and construction of another in Orchard Park to Cleveland’s factory of sadness to Dan Campbell’s house of pain. These three franchises own a combined zero Super Bowl titles. It’s impossible to imagine what that first championship would do to any of these cities.
Buffalo and Detroit are close — again — and the energy is palpable.
Josh Allen declares the Bills winning a Super Bowl title as the “last greatest sports story in all of the world.” Dan Campbell still resembles an actual lion prowling the sideline. And during minicamp this week, the Lions coach was asked how he prevents burnout. All emotion must take a toll.
“I just burn the ashes and come back up,” Campbell quipped.
There was laughter in the media room and Campbell paused to say this was a good question. He obviously struggles with this balance. He tries to find a balance for himself and all coaches on staff. This offseason, the entire Lions staff traveled north to Petoskey, Mich., for a retreat. Spouses were all welcomed.
Campbell admits he’s not perfect.
“This job is consuming,” he continued. “But I love it. We love it. Most coaches would tell you that. It’s addictive. It’s consuming.”
You can hear it in his voice. Campbell cannot change who he is to his core. Nor should he.
You can hear it in Allen’s voice, too. No costly fumble in a playoff loss, no broken fifth metatarsal in his foot will dull his daredevil intuition this side of 30 years old. One quote from our 1 on 1 with the quarterback became a source of local and national debate. “I’m going to play football how I know how to play it until I can’t,” Allen told us. “And when I can’t play it the way I want to play it, it’s probably when I’m done. But hopefully that’s still quite some time.”
The impulse this time of year is to scold Allen’s street ball and Campbell’s retro coaching (and fourth-down cojones) as reckless.
But both are the faces of their teams for a reason.
Both organizations were rudderless for decades.
Josh Allen, more than any coach, any player, anyone in the front office, resurrected the comatose Bills. And he did it by blowtorching defenses. The only way the Bills get to a Super Bowl is if he’s himself, not a watered-down knockoff. Worry about aging — start sliding, throwing balls away, setting the cruise control at 65 on the highway — and he’s no different than any QB in the NFL. His ability to toss a grenade onto the field, at any moment, is why Buffalo has won 11+ games six years in a row.
Dan Campbell awakened the Lions. After starting 4-19-1, he’s gone 44-17 with his own audacious style. No coach in NFL history went for it on fourth down in a four-year span more than Campbell between ‘21 and ‘24: a total of 151 attempts. At times, this has backfired. His practices are hard. To tackle properly in games the Lions tackle in practice. At times, this also has backfired. But if Campbell starts punting at midfield… attempting chip-shot field goals… bubble-wrapping players in training camp… and toning down his rhetoric, he’d atrophy the building. He’d be deserting the principles that turned a perennial loser into a winner.
Both QB and HC were mocked, memed, ridiculed incessantly upon taking over… and practically flipped a middle finger at ‘em all by leaning harder into what makes them special.
And that’s the key. Winning a Super Bowl takes an element of special. Listen closely to what each said this spring and it’s clear they understand this.
Sage advice for everyone in pro football — and fantastic news for two clubs starving for Super Bowl glory.
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It’s natural to compare Allen to ex-Carolina Panthers quarterback Cam Newton. They’re both built like NBA small forwards in the 90s. They both fight for every yard. And for a while, the Bills seemed determined to become Panthers North. In his first eight pro seasons before age 30, including the postseason, Newton carried the ball 992 times and was sacked 305 times. He won an MVP at age 28. He was out of football in a blink. In his first eight seasons before age 30, Allen has 1,006 carries while getting sacked 261 times. He won an MVP at age 28.
Right now is precisely when it’s fair to wonder how much prime football Allen has ahead of him. There is no denying this physical toll. Perhaps Allen is being naive.
But to me, the better comparison has always been Brett Favre. The ex-Packer sees himself in Allen — that same go-for-broke instinct. Mainly, Favre and Allen are superhuman in two areas that age exceptionally well.
Arm strength. No throw is impossible on the field. It doesn’t matter how tightly corners are blanketing receivers. X’s and O’s are useless against the truly elite arms.
Toughness. Allen’s streak of 142 straight starts is No. 1 amongst active quarterbacks. At one point in our conversation, he asked for the record. Upon hearing Favre lasted 300+ starts, his eyes got big. Favre also gritted through broken appendages. Both are willing to do anything to stay on the field and the galvanizing effect on teammates is real.
Obviously, Allen will run the ball less by 33, 34, 35 because linebackers will simply be faster than him. That’s fine. He’ll rush for 250 yards per season instead of 550. His arm won’t get creaky. Two of Favre’s best statistical seasons ever came at age 38 and 40. Replay throws from each of those seasons, here and here. There’s virtually no loss of velocity on his fastball from when he was a three-time MVP 10+ years prior. Favre went 25-7 those seasons and came within an overtime of taking both Green Bay and Minnesota to Super Bowls.
And some of the best quarterbacks in NFL history play at an elite level into their mid-to-late 30s because they physically will themselves to do so. Ben Roethlisberger led the NFL in passing at age 36 and steered the Steelers to an 11-0 start at age 38. Matthew Stafford’s threshold for pain is the stuff of legend. The 38-year-old is a reigning MVP.
It’s on the Bills to surround the quarterback with necessary protection and weapons.
Allen is not close to finished.
Both are striking a deal with the football gods. The mentalities of Allen and Campbell probably will come with a cost on the back-end. But even if a YOLO approach shaves a year (or two) off either career, it’s worth it. Both strike me as the living embodiment of that famous Steve Prefontaine quote. “To give anything less than your best,” the late track star said, “is to sacrifice the gift.” Can’t imagine Allen would sleep well on a Sunday night if he knew he could’ve tried knifing a dagger route between defenders, yet patted the ball instead. Doubt Campbell would be able to live with himself if he ditched film prep to let off steam at a Red Wings game and/or get a steady 8-10 hours of sleep per night. It’s not him.
Remember how he built this thing from scratch, post-Matt Patricia.
Words like “grit” are brought to life. He finds players with ass-kicking origins. The result is a team that plays fast, free.
“Can you hang with us when we’re going to hit you in the face with a baseball bat?” ex-lineman Taylor Decker once told me. “That resonates because that’s the brand of football that we play.”
Last season rattled Lions HQ. In November, Campbell’s crew was 6-3. Super Bowl hopes were real. Then, he went 0-for-5 on fourth down in a primetime loss to the Philadelphia Eagles. Four of the Lions’ final five losses were by one score or less. A 29-24 loss at home to Pittsburgh was particularly agonizing. His Lions had the ball at the 1-yard line with 25 seconds left to win and proceeded to go backwards. That evening, Detroit’s defense was also flattened for 230 rushing yards.
Injuries ravaged the roster. Again. True, injuries are often nothing but dumb luck. But this has also become a trend. Per FTN Fantasy’s “Adjusted Games Lost,” via Pride of Detroit, here’s how Campbell’s team has ranked with 1st being the least injured and 32nd most injured.
2025: 31st
2024: 25th
2023: 18th
2022: 27th
2021: 30th
The Lions are tweaking things this offseason, just as Allen has tried to fine-tune his deep ball. Campbell cancelled rookie minicamp and he also won’t conduct joint practices with another team for the first time in his Lions tenure. Word’s getting out on his practices. On the St. Brown Brothers podcast, 49ers linebacker Fred Warner criticized the Lions’ live tackling in practice.
“At some point,” Warner said, “old Dan is going to come to his senses, man, and be like, ‘Listen, this ain’t making nobody better, brother. We can still get our work in without bringing guys to the ground.’”
The 49ers haven’t been a beacon of good health, of course.
Campbell sounds unfazed. He has made it abundantly clear that training camp will not soften. When the Lions reconvene in late July, players can fully expect the same level of physicality and intensity following a disappointing 9-8 season. He expects some starters to play in the preseason.
“We’re gonna push it. We’re gonna push, that’s what we do,” Campbell said. “But we’ll do it smart. We’ve got to get these guys ready for a season.”
Hype inflated to unprecedented extremes the last few years in Detroit. Season ticket sales soared and Ford Field became a rock concert as the NFL’s preeminent featherweight transformed into a heavyweight contender. Campbell wants the Lions as a whole to get back to a “no nonsense” state of mind, back to dragging teams into the “deep, dark abyss” of the ocean. This remains a violent sport. Some teams condition the body for contact; others do not. Flirting with a country club environment in the slightest would run counter to everything Campbell says in meetings. Guys must buy in and Campbell believes vets like Penei Sewell, Jack Campbell, Jared Goff and Aidan Hutchinson will set the correct tone this summer.
Come September, games will begin and we can fully expect the Lions to go for it on fourth down.
Banging your head against the January door gets frustrating. Campbell was 100 percent correct to tell his players “this might’ve been our only shot” following the Lions’ crushing 2023 NFC title loss in San Francisco. He knew it’s ridiculously harder to climb back to this point. Detroit then went 15-2 and was stunned by the Washington Commanders in the divisional round before last season’s playoff-less campaign.
Expect an extremely motivated team in 2026. Detroit may feast on its last-place schedule.
The focus, for both teams, should be accentuating each leader’s gifts. Not minimizing them. New OC Drew Petzing brings a dynamic rushing scheme that could, in theory, launch running back Jahmyr Gibbs into true superstardom. GM Brad Holmes has assisted in constructing a roster that reflects the coach’s spirit. In Joe Brady, the Buffalo Bills hope to finally hit the bull’s eye on the most important relationship in sports: QB and HC. Brady is a coach who wants to build, think and play through the quarterback.
Time will tell how he handles pressure. It’s impossible to fully simulate in the interview process.
These two franchises are forever linked together. Bills founder Ralph Wilson Jr. grew up in Detroit. Whenever snowstorms swallow Western New York, the Bills migrate to Ford Field. Above all, these are two Rust Belt cities with shared torment on the gridiron.
Which brings us to that third organization very familiar with torment. Halfway ‘round the bend of these Great Lakes, you’ll see Huntington Bank Field where the Browns have been searching and searching for saviors at both head coach and quarterback. Campbell interviewed for the Browns job once and knocked his pitch out of the park. Owner Jimmy Haslam, as we reported, was too swayed by his analytics department to take Campbell’s tough talk seriously. Allen was right there for the pickings at No. 1 and No. 4 overall in the 2018 draft. Cleveland opted for Baker Mayfield, then drove the QB out of town.
The good news for Cleveland is that strong drafts are starting to add up. This roster has a lot of promising young talent. A nucleus. Maybe new Todd Monken can inject some life into the franchise and maybe they’re able to find their long-lost quarterback next year.
There’s no such “maybes” being spoken inside the nearest NFL buildings to the east and west. Generational losing has been replaced by annual contention. The clearest path for these two teams to meet up 2,000+ miles west in Inglewood, Calif. on Feb. 14, 2027 is for Josh Allen and Dan Campbell to stay fully addicted to what made them great in the first place.
Neither individual will decelerate, either.
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