Usually, Dan Campbell's postgame locker room speeches are filled with energy. After the Lions' Week 12 win over the Indianapolis Colts, he was a little more subdued, even emotional in spots.
At the podium after Thursday's game, after the Lions hung on to beat the Chicago Bears despite a not-so-great second half and epic clock mismanagement by the Bears, Campbell acknowledged all there is to clean up while conveying the idea of being happy to win a hard-fought game on a short week amid a myriad of injuries.
"If you’re not careful, you start grading your own wins, and it’s good because you have these standards, the way you think you should play, by your own standards, by what you have, it has nothing to do with the opponent,” Campbell said, via Dave Birkett of the Detroit Free Press. “If you’re not careful, you start going too far down that thing, then you start taking the wins for granted. And ultimately, man, that’s a good win against an opponent that has fought every week, and this was the third game in a row, division game, that those guys have brought it over there. So we did what we had to do to win. And we’ll clean up the other stuff that cost us some points. I’m not worried about that. But I will take this W and I’m not going to lose sleep over it.”
Dan Campbell takes a different tone in locker room after Lions' win vs. Bears
Turns out the "grading the wins" idea was something Campbell had already told the team in the postgame locker room.
"If you're not careful with where we're at, you start grading the wins. You know, and we need to do that to an extent, because that's how you continue to get better. We got our standards. But you also got step back for a minute and say 'man it's not easy to win in this league.' And man, every week is different, and the most important thing is to find a way to win the game."
"And if you're not built the way we are, you don't win that game. So we came out, and we were hummin' pretty good. It wasn't perfect. We gave 'em life, then they started comin' back. And it took a lot. How 'bout our defense, man? How 'bout our defense."
After talking about "that's what we do" in terms of complementary football, Campbell got a little bit poignant in the spirit of the holiday.
"So listen, man, I'm thankful for every one of you guys in this room. And you've got a lot to be thankful for, we all do, man. Happy Thanksgiving to all of you."
Campbell handed out one game ball, to defensive tackle DJ Reader after his career-best two-sack outing.
Check out Campbell's entire speech, and Reader's closing break-down, in the postgame locker room.