Lions head coach Dan Campbell wants his team to play more instinctively in 2024 and he made the NFL’s second Will Ferrell reference of the offseason to drive home his point.
Chargers linebacker Denzel Perryman said earlier this year that head coach Jim Harbaugh reminds him of the actor while Campbell cited one of Ferrell’s iconic roles as an example of what he wants the Lions to avoid this season. In Anchorman, Ferrell’s character Ron Burgundy gets into trouble when he reads off a teleprompter without realizing the text has been changed to make him repeat a vulgar suggestion to the city of San Diego.
On Thursday, Campbell said he wants his team to be able to adapt to the situation at hand and adjust what was planned to improve their chances of success.
“Those are the little things where we can really grow offensively and defensively,” Campbell said, via Christian Booher of SI.com. “Like the awareness of who’s in, what’s the situation. We know what it says on paper, but we can’t do the Ron Burgundy. We can’t just continue to read off the teleprompter. And, that’s the next step, that is the next evolution, because that’s what San Francisco did to us, quite frankly. They played at a different level.”
With several years of continuity on both sides of the ball, the Lions should have the depth of understanding that allows them to take that kind of step on the field this fall. If they do, they won’t need to save anyone from a bear enclosure in order to position themselves for a happy ending to the season.
Source Agencies
