LIONS HEAD COACH DAN CAMPBELL QUOTE SHEET

November 26, 2024

Opening Statement: “After full practice yesterday, pads, everything (laughs), injury report’s pretty much the same. So, a lot of guys questionable.”

On if there is increased optimism in Lions WR Kalif Raymond, Lions T Taylor Decker and Lions CB Carlton Davis III playing on Thursday: “Nope.”

On Lions WR Jameson Williams avoiding gun charges for his incident in October and if he had a message for him: “Well, we talked about this – honestly this was – we had this conversation with Jamo back, I guess right before his suspension started, somewhere in there. So, this has been talked about, we’re all good. ‘Hey, you got to be mindful of where you’re at, be on top of your details, get that all eyes are on you.’ And he’s good. We hit it and he understands that.”

On if Lions WR Jameson Williams understands how serious his legal situation was: “Yeah, I think he does. I do, I think every one of these that come up, you don’t want them to come up, but I do think that he’s learning and he’s growing from these. I do. So, yeah, I do. I do.”

On waiving Lions DL James Houston after it did not work out: “It just didn’t. We had James up for a number of games, came back off the injury and got back, and it just never quite worked out. And look, wish him the best of luck and sometimes you just need a fresh start, and this could be great for him. So, wish him the best.”

On if he is still trying to figure out who will return punts: “Yeah, we are. I’m still trying to think about that because part of me says let’s just use (Lions WR Amon-Ra St. Brown) Saint again because he is the most reliable, so we may just do that. You know what, we’re going to do that. We’re going to do that.”

On if he is confident in Lions WR Amon-Ra St. Brown playing in the Bears game: “Yeah, I feel pretty good about Saint, actually. Well, I’ll know more today. But you asked me about the three that I talked about yesterday and I don’t feel as good about those.”

On an injury update on Lions RB David Montgomery: “I feel pretty good about David, yeah. Like I said after full pads yesterday and full tilt practice, it looked good.”

On if he could have kept Lions RB David Montgomery out of the Bears game if he wanted to: “Oh heck no, are you kidding me? No, no, no. And look, David last week was – he wanted to get back in that game. He was good and I held him back just to be on the safe side and he was not happy.”

On the injury prognosis for Lions WR Kalif Raymond: “We are still waiting on a second opinion.”

On if there is a concern that Lions WR Kalif Raymond’s injury is season-ending: “Could be, but I don’t know that for sure. I don’t want to – the first word we got was positive, we’re just waiting on a second opinion.”

On how much the players want to break the Thanksgiving losing streak: “Yeah, there again I kind of present it like – well I think there’s two things. Number one, get a W, right and it’s a division win that’s why this is huge. Number two is because the players are going to get a couple of days off. So, they have family, friends in, it’d be nice to feel good about it when you’re with everybody because it’s just not real fun. It’s not real fun to be around. Ask my wife, she’ll tell you. Like that’s why she’s praying for a win big time because she knows that I’m a bear when we don’t win, so we all want it. It is long overdue, but we have to win to win.”

On if he is getting a kick out of his wife’s larger social media presence: “Alright, that’s it. I’m done. I’m done answering those. I shouldn’t have opened that up.”

On if he has seen anything be schematically different in the Bears’ offense after changing coordinators mid-season: “There’s not necessarily – there is more quick game. There’s a lot more quick game, get the ball out, pretty simple progressions that he’s doing really well with. You watch him, bam, bam, bam, he’s working across the board, flipping his hips, processes it pretty fast, and if it’s not there then he takes off. I kind of mentioned there is some shift, motions, perfect plays, kills, so there’s a little bit of that that’s different than it was but they’re still doing some of the same things. So, I think they just – they’re trying to give him the best opportunity to have success or with any offense as much as you can. ‘We get this look, this is what we run. We get the other, we go to this, or I give you the ability to give an alert. Or this is the best route out here to my three-man side versus Cover 2, Cover 1, press on one, off on two.’ Whatever that is, so that helps because now you’re not worried about, ‘I got to call this and run it against anything they could possibly give me. I know what it is and it’s the best opportunity to have success.’”

On what has impressed him the most about Bears QB Caleb Williams in his first year: “It’s not easy for any quarterback coming into this League, I don’t care who you are. Everything happens so much faster. The athletes, the looks that you get, the amount of separation or the lack of amount of separation that you had in college. So, those get on you, it takes a minute. And in between knowing protections, ‘Am I hot on this, what’s the look, I know this is a disguise, I don’t know if this is a disguise, the nickel is coming.’ There’s just a lot and so what I’ve been impressed with is just he has grown, he has grown every game but these last two I really feel like he’s taken off and what they’re doing with him has been really good for him and he just looks very composed. He doesn’t get frazzled, plays pretty fast, and he’s an accurate passer, big arm, and he’s got some guys that can get open for him.”

On what he has seen out of Lions RB Sione Vaki on special teams: “Listen, Vaki is a pretty good special teams player for us. We had a lot of high hopes for him in that regard for us. We felt like in the meantime while he’s learning to play the halfback position, because he’s kind of new and it’s something that he hasn’t done a lot of, that special teams would be an area that he would help us, and he’s done that. He’s a four-core guy for us because he does – special teams he plays like a safety which is what he was in college. So, he’s growing, he’s continuing, we slowly try to give him a couple of plays in the offense just to help him, but he’s been an asset. And I go back to this, if you can get him to the game then you can use him in other areas. So, he’s been able to do that, and we like him a lot. We like him a lot.”

On if there is consideration in moving Lions CB Amik Robertson outside if Lions CB Carlton Davis III does not play Thursday: “We talked about it. It’s up for discussion. It’s hard to say, there again, on a walkthrough – alright I let the cat out of the bag, we really didn’t go full speed in pads yesterday. It’s hard to do that, but all things are on the table. It’s not like Amik’s never played outside. He can go out there and not bat an eye and then you move (Lions CB Emmanuel Moseley) E-man inside which is great. So, we have all option on the table. We’re not afraid to play (Lions CB Khalil) Dorsey with (Lions CB Kindle) Vildor or whatever the case is. We’ve got options and we feel good about all of them.”

On Lions QB Hendon Hooker’s development throughout the year and how comfortable he is with him at backup: “He’s progressed, he’s progressed which is – we told him from day one, we just need growth. We need you to grow every week and we’ve given him opportunities in practice, good on good, to run our offense and as much as we can put him under pressure, we’ve done that, and I would say he’s progressed. That’s the best way to say it. Every guy grows at his own rate and he’s growing. Listen, if the time comes, he’s got to be ready to play. Period. It doesn’t matter whether he’s ready or not. He’ll go in there and there’s things that he does well and those are things that we would call that I think he’ll have success with, and you go from there.”

On if Lions QB Hendon Hooker is progressing at the rate that he wants for a developmental quarterback: “Sure, sure. Any growth is good with me. That’s all. You just want to know that he’s getting better in all the little, small areas to playing the quarterback position. I think there’s so many things when it comes to that, it’s you want it all. Everybody wants it all and it just doesn’t work that way. You just want to know, ‘Hey man, you can get in there, you can command the offense, get us in the right play, everybody’s going to look at you and know that you know your stuff and they can trust you.’ Now is it going to be perfect? No, it doesn’t need to be. There’s a way that we can play the game if it comes to that too. And I do feel him growing and that’s all that you can ask for.”

On if they are considering signing free agent QB Daniel Jones: “We haven’t really talked about that. The name’s come up but it’s not like we’ve sat down and talked so I don’t want to give you a yes or a no.”