Dan Campbell Reveals Priorities for Lions Improvement

Despite finishing a franchise-best 15-2 last season, Dan Campbell and the Lions know there's room for improvement headed into the 2025 campaign.

For starters, the Campbell-led squad needs to generate turnovers on a more consistent basis. Detroit did finish tied for 10th a season ago with 24 forced turnovers. All-Pro safety Kerby Joseph led the way in the department with an NFL-best nine interceptions.

However, as Campbell expressed on the “SiriusXM Camp Tour” Tuesday, the turnovers came in waves far too often.

“We have to force more takeaways, and we have to do a much better job than we have and they would come in ebbs and flows,” the fifth-year Detroit head man said. “It’s gotta be, once you start out the season, you’re in that flow and then you’re getting them consistently. But, you’ve got to work at it, man, and right, wrong or indifferent, you’ve got to be violent with it. You want to get the ball, you’ve got to practice being violent at the punch outs and at the contact point.”

To Campbell, Detroit's defense needs to improve upon this aforementioned area in order to take the next step.

“That’s what championship defenses do, man, and they do it. They do it over and over,” Campbell added regarding the importance of coming up with takeaways. “They’re consistent with it, and to me, that’s the next step. We get the takeaways.”

Campbell also emphasized there's room for improvement for the Lions’ No. 1-ranked offense (33.2 points/game) from last season. Although the then-Ben Johnson-led unit had no problem scoring points, Campbell would like the now John Morton-guided offense to get better converting on third-and-short this upcoming season.

“And then offensively is being better on third-and-short,” the popular Lions head coach said. “Third-and-two-to-six, today, was our deal. As good as we were in some areas last year, short yardage and third-and-two-to-six, we weren’t very good relative to everything else. We should be so much better in those areas (short yardage and creating turnovers), and those are just a couple things we’ve identified.”