After hinting at some upcoming changes to practice, Lions head coach Dan Campbell has gotten specific about those changes as the team gets back to work after the bye week.
Heading into the bye week last week, Detroit Lions head coach Dan Campbell pointed to implementing some changes to how the team practiced during his appearance on 97.1 The Ticket.
A lengthy list of injured players led to a ramping down in practice intensity early this season, as it would tend to in that circumstance.
"I’m not so sure we don’t need to be back in pads,” Campbell said. “We haven’t been in them in a long time. I don’t know if we need to have more intensity or more volume — I think we’re getting some volume — but I have to look at all those things. We have to get to where we’re preparing to win, not just preparing to play."
Campbell was back in front of reporters coming into the new week on Monday. He outlined more specifically how the team’s practice routine will change
Via SI.com:
"I just felt like we’ve got to get back to those things we were doing in camp. We’re not talking about going out there for two-and-a-half hours. But, man, we’ve got to get back to some of this, the competitiveness, the good-on-good, and just good one-on-one work, we have to. So, that was one area I looked at myself and said, ‘We’ve got to get back to those things.’ It’s really who we’ve been and what we are.”"
Dan Campbell will have Lions practicing less, but more intensely
It sounds like Campbell wants to have shorter, more intense practices moving forward. He previously hinted at doing more one-on-one work, which seems to fit in the idea of shorter practices. The league’s limits on padded practice, just 14 during the regular season, don’t seem helpful to having more intense practices. But in his comments last week, Campbell said the team hadn’t been in pads for three weeks.
The Lions need to change some things, and as pointed to over and over here the bye week came at a good time to reset and make any appropriate changes. Practice is just that, “only” practice, but switching up the routine during the week could help bring better showings on Sundays. It surely won’t make things worse than they’ve largely been in recent weeks.