Dan Campbell has got this

Four weeks into the NFL season, the Detroit Lions are 3-1, sitting atop an NFC North they’ve won the past two seasons. At the conclusion of Week 1’s disastrous performance against the Green Bay Packers, there hardly seemed to be a reality in which the Lions would have a winning record and a point differential of +49–the biggest in the NFL.

But heavy is the head that wears the crown. A quick trip down I-75 will wrap up the Lions’ two-week tour of what Ohio has to offer professional football, but things only ramp up from there. First, a date at Arrowhead to play the reinvigorated Kansas City Chiefs, and then after that, the Tampa Bay Buccaneers on “Monday Night Football.” It’s not getting any easier for the Lions before the bye, but it’s cool, Lions fans can relax: Dan Campbell has got this.

After this 34-10 handling of the Cleveland Browns, a win that feels so emblematic of what’s come to define the Detroit Lions under Campbell, it’s worth remembering how unlikely this all once seemed. In Campbell’s first season, Detroit battled their way to a 3–13–1 finish in 2021, tied for the second-worst record in football. The roster was thin, the depth chart constantly in rotation, but beneath the ugly box scores, something had taken root. The Lions attempted—at the time—a record-setting 41 fourth downs in 2021, a stubborn refusal to back down that embodied Campbell’s ethos: Detroit wouldn’t win often, but they would compete.

A competitive spirit wasn’t enough after a miserable 1–6 start to the 2022 season, but the Lions won eight of their last 10 to finish 9-8, their first winning season since 2017. The team didn’t make the playoffs, but they sure as hell kept the Packers out, and the turnaround was remarkable. That locker room didn’t fracture, ownership didn’t waver in their support and trust in Campbell: it was galvanized. Their identity had crystallized.

The transformation was undeniable in 2023. Detroit won 12 games, captured its first division crown in over 30 years, and finally broke the franchise’s 32-year playoff drought with a Wild Card win over the Los Angeles Rams. They followed that up with another postseason victory over the Buccaneers before dramatically falling to San Francisco in the NFC Championship.

If 2023 was a breakthrough, then 2024 was their coronation as one of the big players in the NFL. The Lions went 15–2, the best regular season in franchise history despite suffering historically awful injury luck. They set a franchise scoring record, went a perfect 6–0 in the NFC North, and collected eight road victories—also a franchise best. For the first time in decades, Detroit wasn’t sneaking up on anyone: teams came into matchups with the Lions expecting to face one of the best teams this league has to offer.

That growth—3 wins in 2021, 9 in 2022, 12 in 2023, and 15 in 2024—wasn’t a coincidence. It was a straight-line trajectory of a program ascending from the league’s basement to its penthouse in just four years.

It helps to look at the numbers to understand how remarkable this era is. As of Week 4 in 2025, Campbell owns a 42–29–1 regular-season record, good for a .591 winning percentage. That makes him the fourth-winningest coach in franchise history by percentage, trailing only legends of the pre-Super Bowl era like Potsy Clark and Buddy Parker. No Lions coach in the past 25 years has delivered this kind of consistent success. Wayne Fontes took the Lions to the playoffs four times in the ‘90s but finished his tenure with a win percentage below .500. Jim Caldwell, the most stable coach of the Matthew Stafford era, never won a division and finished his stint at 36–28 (.563), not so coincidentally the same percentage of a 9-7 season.

Campbell has back-to-back division titles, two playoff wins, and the franchise’s first NFC Championship appearance since 1991 over the last two seasons.

When zooming out league-wide, Campbell’s trajectory aligns with the best in the league, and it’s hard not to view him as belonging to that pantheon of top-tier NFL head coaches.

John Harbaugh is working through some early-season struggles right now, but he took over a 5-11 Ravens team in 2008 and had them in the AFC Championship by his third year, a trajectory that mirrors Campbell’s own postseason breakthrough by 2023. Sean McVay engineered a rapid turnaround with the Rams in 2017, flipping a 4–12 record into an 11–5 mark in his first season and reaching the Super Bowl in his second; Campbell’s Lions didn’t start as fast, but by his third and fourth years they have been every bit as competitive. Even Andy Reid, one of the most respected coaches of his generation, endured a whole lot of uncertainty before reaching the top. Although he was consistently appearing in the postseason and making playoff runs, questions about if he could ever win the big one, first in Philadelphia and then in Kansas City, persisted until he finally did it in his seventh season with the Chiefs—his 21st season as a head coach. If the offseason banter about edge rushers and going all-in are any indication, fans might not be prepared for that kind of patience, but considering the lows this franchise sank to for decades, it’s one they should embrace as the Lions have finally become a perennial contender.

Perhaps most telling is Campbell’s dominance within an NFC North labeled one of the toughest in football. 6–0 in division play in 2024, and he is 17–7 against divisional opponents going back to 2021. Great NFL coaches have built dynasties by first owning their neighborhood, and despite this division set up to be one of the most competitive divisions in football, the Lions have a path toward doing the same if they follow Campbell’s lead.

And that’s why this era feels unlike anything the franchise has seen since the turn of the century: the floor has risen, and you know where the ceiling is–and it’s something you can see them reaching. Detroit is no longer a team hoping to sneak into the playoffs if everything breaks right. They are expected to be there, and expected to advance. It’s front-page news and shocking when the Lions lose like they did in Week 1 to the Packers, but when they steamroll the next three teams, it’s simply back to business as usual.

It’s more than just the records and numbers and wins. Campbell’s authenticity—knee-biting grit paired with genuine care for his players—has forged a culture that sustains itself even amid coordinator turnover and roster churn. Ben Johnson and Aaron Glenn left for head-coaching gigs this offseason, and the brain drain it was supposed to create in Campbell’s locker room? Turns out it was greatly exaggerated. That’s the hallmark of an institution, and that’s what the Lions have become under Campbell’s leadership.

So where does this leave us, four weeks into 2025? On the cusp of something unprecedented.

The Lions’ 3–1 start, punctuated in recent weeks with that +49 point differential, is no mirage. They’re taking the fight to their opponents, regardless of who those opponents think they are, Detroit refuses to compromise: a punishing ground game, efficient passing, and a defense that thrives on situational winning on a down-by-down basis.

This isn’t the type of hot start that feels like fool’s gold. It’s the continuation of a three-year trend where Detroit is finding ways to win in different ways against quality opponents. Campbell’s Lions aren’t opportunistic, they’re prepared. Even in a loss as bad as the one against Green Bay this year, they didn’t flinch or retreat. Their resilience and commitment to improving has fueled their on-field response these past three weeks.

Shockingly enough, Detroit had never had back-to-back, double-digit win seasons before Campbell. If they can manage to have a winning record over these next three games before the bye, it will have been three years since the Campbell-led Lions have lost back-to-back games—October 30, 2022. The Lions don’t just have momentum or mass, they have a leader with a plan for adversity. And for the first time in a generation, optimism for Detroit’s football team isn’t built on “what if?” Thanks to Campbell, it’s built on “what’s next?”