Dan Campbell perfectly explains why Lions didn't rest starters against the 49ers

Not that he really needed to do so, but Dan Campbell took an opportunity to explain why the Lions did not rest starters on Monday night.

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Even with Monday night's game against the San Francisco 49ers being widely deemed meaningless, Dan Campbell surprised exactly no one with his declaration of how the Detroit Lions would approach it.

Though not resting starters is clearly Campbell's approach, and nothing else should've been expected, it doesn't mean it was (or it ever is) easy. When prompted to address the importance of getting the win over the 49ers with the starters playing, Campbell took the opportunity to outline his thought process.

"There’s nothing easy about this. There’s a number of things you’ve got to decide. We don’t get to prepare those other guys, because you don’t know what’s gonna happen. You don’t know what’s gonna happen for first, second down, third down, red zone leading into the week. Like, for example, (Hendon) Hooker’s not getting those reps. Those are Goff’s reps because we don’t know. That’s just one example. I just don’t believe it’s fair to put in a guy that’s not prepared to play, especially a young player."

If a notable Lions' player had been injured on Monday night, the tone of the conversation about resting starters in a "meaningless" game would be different today. Campbell also talked about the general limitation of having 53 available players, which he has hinted at before in the context of pulling starters in blowouts.

"And then, you can only sit six guys, so who are those six? ‘All right, here are the six.’ And then the other guys, that don’t, was it fair to them that we’re not using everything we’ve got? We flew out here, we prepared this way, we came out to win and that’s ultimately what it came to. And yeah, you cross your fingers nobody gets hurt. It’s tough. And we were fortunate, we got out. And now it’s on to the next one.”

Dan Campbell perfectly explains not resting starters vs. 49ers

When the Minnesota Vikings beat the Green Bay Packers on Sunday, the result of Monday night's game was officially "meaningless" since the Lions couldn't clinch the No. 1 seed in the playoffs with a win.

Campbell was asked if he thought about resting starters after the Vikings beat the Packers.

"Yeah, I’m probably like you guys that were all here", Campbell said. "Woke up at 2 or whatever this was this morning (Monday), and yeah, it was on my mind. I thought a lot about it. I thought about it leading up to the game, I thought about it last night, I told the staff, but I ended up settling on — the right thing to do was play these guys, because we owed it to the team. And it was just one of those positions we were in. It’s hard to say who you’re gonna sit and it’s not fair to ask guys to play that haven’t been prepared to play. So yeah, that was tough."

One of the best things about Campbell is he does not engage in coach-speak. Sure he can be vague about injuries sometimes, but that's to be expected. On any other topic, he'll tell you how he feels or explain why he did something. He didn't really need to go to the extent he did to explain why he didn't rest starters against the 49ers, but he took the opportunity to do so anyway.

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