meaningless for them and
meaningless for us – this is
just fairytale stuff

“That’s the only way we know. It’s just go and find a way to win,” Goff said. “This is what ended our season last year. There’s a lot of guys on this team that were there last year that wanted to get one back on them even though in a lot of ways it was meaningless for them and it was meaningless for us.”

The stakes for this game were miniscule compared to the last meeting between the teams when a berth in the Super Bowl was on the line last January.

San Francisco was eliminated from playoff contention last week and Detroit plays Minnesota in the regular-season finale next week, with the winner earning the NFC North title and top seed in the NFC playoffs, and the loser relegated to being the first 14-win wild-card team in NFL history.

“This is just fairytale stuff,” Campbell said.

Had the Vikings lost on Sunday, Detroit could have clinched the division and No 1 seed on Monday night. But now the win against the 49ers would only matter if Detroit and Minnesota tie in Week 18, with the Lions now set to earn the No 1 seed in that unlikely scenario.

Campbell said he considered resting some starters but decided it would be unfair to the backups who hadn’t prepared and the starters who still would have had to play. It all worked out, with the Lions getting the win and coming out healthy.

“I ended up settling on the right thing to do was playing those guys,” he said. “We owed it to the team. … That was tough. I think the biggest thing is there was things we wanted to do better than we did last week, and we did.”

Dan Campbell, Head Coach of the Detroit Lions on beating the San Francisco 49ers as told in the article, Goff and Lions see off 49ers 40-34 in tune-up for Week 18 showdown.

didn’t want to play
if don’t want to, ain’t got to …
he ain’t want to play

Matt Barrows and Jimmy Durkin write in their New York Times article, 49ers’ De’Vondre Campbell refuses to play, quits TNF game in third quarter that:

Following their 12-6 loss to the Los Angeles Rams, San Francisco 49ers coach Kyle Shanahan said linebacker De’Vondre Campbell Sr. told the team he didn’t want to play and he left the field in the third quarter of the “Thursday Night Football” matchup.

“He said he didn’t want to play today,” Shanahan said postgame, noting the team wanted him to replace Dre Greenlaw when the linebacker left the game in the third quarter with some soreness. Greenlaw was playing for the first time since tearing his Achilles in the Super Bowl and was expected to play limited snaps. Greenlaw replaced Campbell in the starting lineup.

Dre Greenlaw was quoted in the same article, saying “He didn’t want to play so I guess if you don’t want to play, you ain’t got to play. He ain’t want to play.”

Got to repeat that.

He didn’t want to play so I guess if you don’t want to play, you ain’t got to play. He ain’t want to play.

Mr. Greenlaw, I feel I have to mention, is a graduate of the University of Arkansas.

Somewhere in the back of my mind is this bit of history about the World Wide Web but I cannot recall the fellers name in question.

But he traveled the major college circuit trying to build up interest in this thing called the ‘Internetwork of Computers’.

One problem this feller had, he said, was getting past the fact that he had a southern accent and came from the University of Arkansas.

With those two things going for him, he said, college people had a hard time taking him seriously.

Welllll

If you don’t want to play so I guess if you don’t want to play, you ain’t got to play and they ain’t want to play.

Or words that affect.

people are greatly
roused up over the defeats
coaching is main thing

Dear sir:

Mr. George Huff handed me your letter to him of December 27th and requested me to answer for him. Illinois has secured coaches for 1901 but Michigan has not yet selected hers, although we shall do so very soon.

We won the Western Football Championship for several years, namely 93, 94 and 95. Since then, however, we have won the championship but once, namely in ’98. This has been largely due, I think, to unsatisfactory coaching, though I believe our failure this year was mostly due to the fact that we have a green team, as we had only three old men back.

Our people are greatly roused up over the defeats of the past two years, and a great effort will be made. Alumni everywhere have promised to cooperate, and as we will have three-fourths of the old men back the outlook is splendid. Coaching is the main thing bothering us now.

Would you care to coach at Ann Arbor? What terms? Do you expect to come east soon? If so, could you stop and talk the matter over with us?

If you receive this before you start east, will you please wire me at once whether or not you care to consider the matter and if so, whether you can talk the matter over.

Yours truly,

Chas. Baird

Charles Baird, Athletic Director of the University of Michigan to Fielding H. Yost on January 5, 1901 as reproduced in the book, Stagg vs. Yost : the birth of cutthroat football by John Kryk. Lanham, Maryland, Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc., 2015.

Mr. Kryk writes, “Yost would be the first UM football coach who wasn’t either a former star player at Princeton or Yale or a UM grad. In fact, in 1901, Yost would be the only coach among the seven schools good at football at the time who hadn’t learned his craft at one of the Big Four universities in the East. That Michigan would hire this gregarious nomad with personal and educational pedigrees unlikely to impress Western athletic men, let alone any easterners, spoke to the heights of Yost’s coaching overachievements thus far. Such heights were nothing compared to those he was about to reach at Michigan.”

In a caption to a photograph of Mr. Yost, Kryk write, “Fielding H. Yost had more personality than any man I have ever met,” according to Ring Lardner.”

And that’s good enough for me.

it’s not the playbook
but it’s the way that you play
that’s most important

“It’s not the playbook that’s the most important thing for these guys to come in and learn,” Glenn said this week. “It’s the style of play that we have — and that’s easy to learn because once you see it and once we show it to them, they understand, listen, this is how we play. We can shrink the playbook down as much as we want, but it’s the way that you play that’s the most important.”

Lions’ defensive coordinator Aaron Glenn as quoted in the article, Why Lions’ shootout win over Packers ranks among Dan Campbell’s most special by Colton Pouncy Dec 6, 2024, in The Athletic (Click here for PDF for those who don’t have access).

Mr. Pouncy continues:

Each one has its own special place in the hearts of those who helped make it happen. Few are as memorable as this one will be for the group that accomplished.

“This is sweet,” said Campbell, pushing all the right buttons for the 12-1 Lions. “I told the team, ‘This will be one of those you never forget.’”

Sure I see the defense falling away piece by piece.

But the new pieces fit into the puzzle in a way that leaves me puzzled.

Back in the day, Detroit would never have pulled this off.

Something has changed.

Mr. Pouncy write, “Program win is a term typically used in college football to describe a defining moment, typically for a team on the rise. But this isn’t college and the Lions are a Super Bowl contender. And yet, this had the feeling of one. Perhaps organizational win is a better term. It took the front office, coaching staff and players on the field to get it done.”

While I remember a Lions coach once asking publicly, what does a guy have to do to get fired around here.

That was Daryl Rodgers and he went 18-40 over 4 years before being fired.

In those four years, his teams won four more games than the Lions have won this year alone … so far.

Just along for the ride … but really enjoying it as long as it lasts.