One of the more indelible images during the New England Patriots’ Death Star reign centered on a hug. The immutable and unsparing coach broke into a smile as he wrapped his arms around his offensive and defensive coordinators – Charlie Weis and Romeo Crennel.
Coach Bill Belichick had just won his third Super Bowl when cameras caught the emotional embrace, emotional, in large part, because the three coaches knew they were never likely to coach together again.
They were right. They didn’t.
Life in the NFL can be a slog for teams on the rebuild. And then suddenly, it isn’t. Because the rise from the abyss speeds up exponentially at the end.
Savor the rise then, eh?
Dan Campbell is sure trying. Mostly because few things in sports are as thrilling as a team finding its way out of the wilderness. But also, because chemistry is an actual thing and not always a certain thing. He’s got it with his two coordinators, Aaron Glenn and Ben Johnson.
So, when you’ve got it … well, it’s best to revel in it for as long as you can. Campbell is most ardently reveling.
He knows it and said so again Friday, that Glenn and Johnson will be head coaches soon. He also knows that if this season ends in a Super Bowl and on a confetti-drenched stage, then no season will ever quite compare, for obvious reasons.
Even if it doesn’t end with a parade, and the Detroit Lions lose before the Super Bowl, that doesn’t minimize what is happening now. Campbell understands this, too:
The 8-1 record. The expectation of winning. The comeback victories and the walk-off victories and the relatively dominant victories.
The Lions are a happening in the football world and they are taking over stadiums near you. Everyone wants to be a part of it.
“Yeah, man,” said Campbell, “I savor every bit of this because you’re not guaranteed – we’re not guaranteed any more wins, as far as that’s concerned.
“You’ve got to earn every one of them and you don’t know what’s going to happen the next day or the next game in front of you. But I know this, this is a special team and it’s a special staff.”
Endings come in a hurry when the going is good. Especially in the NFL, where everyone else wants to steal a piece – or more – of what propelled a team in the first place. And if the rest of the league can’t take your players, then coaches are the next best thing.
Campbell remembers that image of Belichick and his coordinators. Of all that joy and pride and love, but also the undercurrent of melancholy, because they knew that was it.
“It’s a great image and that was a special team,” said Campbell, “that really started it all.”
The New England dynasty, of course, and if Campbell and general manager Brad Holmes have intentions on winning big here, they’ll have to survive moments like that one. Belichick won three more Super Bowls after Crennel and Weis left. Turns out Belichick and Tom Brady were the key, not that anyone didn’t know that at the time.
Still, it’s not easy losing coordinators. Ask Philadelphia, where the coordinators bolted after the Eagles made the 2023 Super Bowl and the Eagles struggled the next season.
Coincidence?
Probably not, but that’s getting ahead of the story, and beyond the point of the story, which is always the same in a season like this one: Drink it in.
Sip it, if you can. Smell it and taste it and do your best to feel this moment, and these Sundays – and Mondays and Thursdays – and remember that games like Sundays against the Texans, for example, don’t come around often.
Or ever.
In fact, no team since the 70s had won coming from two touchdowns down having thrown five interceptions. As Campbell said late Sunday night – or early Monday morning – that says something. Says a lot, actually.
About the grit and character of the team, obviously. But also, about the unseen and unknowable forces at work that make a win like that possible.
Magic? Karma? Fate?
Hey, something is happening when two field goals brush the inside paint on the uprights.
Whatever the reason, it is reason to embrace every moment of this ride, one that’s more than 60 years in the making, that took a lifetime to get here and could be gone in a flash.
So, yeah, Campbell and Glenn and Johnson are savoring every meeting, and every practice, and every day, and every game. And they are savoring the time with each other.
“Because those guys are going to be head coaches eventually, whether it’s now, whether it’s later,” Campbell said.
It’s only a matter of time. And in the meantime?
Campbell will keep telling himself this: “I’m fortunate, I’m blessed, I’m thankful that I have the coordinators − counting (Lions Special Teams Coordinator Dave) Fipp as well − (and) all three of those guys are superstars. And yeah … I know (that) hey, when it’s over, it’s over. But we’re going to make the most of it until that time comes.”
Everyone else who loves this team probably should, too. For what makes this feel so special is that it comes after so much heartache.
And that usually only comes once in a lifetime as well.
Contact Shawn Windsor: swindsor@freepress.com. Follow him @shawnwindsor.
