Lions head coach Dan Campbell responds to Tyrell Crosby story

The Lions had no official comment to former offensive tackle Tyrell Crosby’s harsh claims, but head coach Dan Campbell didn’t totally dodge the question when asked on Monday.

Over the weekend, Dave Birkett of the Detroit Free Press (subscription required) had a story from former Lions offensive tackle Tyrell Crosby that had some harsh words for how his injury situation was handled last year.

Under head coach Dan Campbell, with a coaching staff filled with former NFL players, the Lions have professed a player-friendly culture of competition. Crosby’s comments go against that dramatically, even within the idea the NFL is a cutthroat business with still-little regard for an injured non-star player.

Crosby surfaced in trade rumors after the Lions drafted Penei Sewell. He suggested he drew ire from Campbell, general manager Brad Holmes and then-offensive coordinator Anthony Lynn for his decision to not show up for the first set of OTAs in 2021–which are voluntary. He said he was homesick after the 2020 season that required quarantine.

Dan Campbell addresses Tyrell Crosby story

The Lions had no immediate comment to Crosby’s harsh claims, and they’ll never have one. But Campbell was on 97.1 The Ticket’s “Stoney and Jansen” Monday, and co-host Jon Jansen brought up the Crosby story.

Via SI.com:

"My players know that if they’ve got an issue, they’ll come up and talk to me,” Campbell told The Ticket. “They know that my door’s always open. You can come talk to me in practice if you really believe something’s going on. We were big on that here man. It’s all about communicating. I’ve said it from day one, our coaches say it from day one. If you’ve got a problem and something’s on your mind, come talk to us, man. You’re not gonna get blasted, we’re gonna talk to you.”We’re gonna talk to you like men, we’ll tell you exactly what we were thinking, what we were doing,” Campbell said. “I don’t feel like this is something I need to be proactive about, to be honest with you. So I wish him the best of luck and it’s all good, I’ve got 90 guys out here I’ve got to get better.”"

Credit to him for not completely dodging Jansen’s question, as many others in his spot would have, but Campbell is not going to say anything other than what he said. An open-door policy is fine to have and profess, but players actually using it is a different question if they fear repurcussions regardless. Overall, Crosby’s claims do go completely against what other Lions players have to say about the current regime.

The Lions’ firing of head trainer Dave Granito around the time of Crosby’s injury situation is interesting, even if Crosby’s complaints of back pain apparently being ignored was not the only reason.

The Crosby story may fade now, with the only way the Lions are likely going to give their side of it now out there.

But the possibility of a lawsuit against the Lions from Crosby does exist, with his now-public story as the basis.