The Dan Campbell era in Detroit didn't start sooner due to unsurprising reason

Now into his fifth season as Detroit Lions head coach, Dan Campbell has turned decades of losing around in tandem with general manager Brad Holmes. He has certainly evolved as a head coach over that time, but the core of who he showed he was at the start remains.

Campbell got his first taste of being a head coach when he became interim head coach of the Miami Dolphins in 2015. After that he got a number of interviews for head coaching jobs in the years after that, to no avail when it came to getting his first full-time opportunity.

Campbell's wife Holly did an interview with WDIV 4 this week. Among many topics that were discussed, she revealed how they loved their time in Detroit when he played three seasons for the Lions (2006-2008. If an opportunity ever came to go back, they would take it.

During is famous introductory press conference in January of 2021, Campbell made it abundantly clear how much he wanted the Lions' head coaching job. Mrs. Campbell freshly expanded on that idea.

"He wanted this job when it was open the last time, and couldn't get an interview", Holly Campbell said.

Lions fans have a new reason to despise former general manager Bob Quinn

Bob Quinn was hired as Lions general manager in 2016. When Jim Caldwell was fired after a 9-7 finish in 2017, the man Quinn would hire as the next head coach in Detroit felt inevitable. With shared New England Patriots' roots, Matt Patricia indeed left his post as Bill Belichick's defensive coordinator to become the Lions' head coach.

We know how badly that went. While it felt like it was much longer, Patricia did not even complete three seasons as the Lions' head coach before he and Quinn were fired on Black Friday in 2020.

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Patricia and the Lions were practically a pre-arranged marriage with Quinn as the general manager, to the point the Rooney Rule was probably nothing more than a token, check that box consideration during the interview process in 2018. But to not even interview Campbell, and very likely some other candidates, is at best a lack of due diligence and at worst sheer arrogance in favor of a hand-picked candidate Quinn was not going to waver from.

Sometimes, the timing just isn't right. Quinn was not going to pivot away from Patricia unless Patricia turned down the opportunity to be the Lions' head coach. It's also fair to say Quinn and Campbell would have been like oil and water together, while the Holmes/Campbell pairing is an ideal alignment of football philosophies.