Three years ago, the Detroit Lions had a press conference to introduce their new coach, Dan Campbell, which was, shall we say, gritty to the extreme. When asked what the football world should expect from his Lions and what his coaching style would be, he responded that fans were tired “of the same old “sh*t,” and rather than give them another dose of coach talk, he spoke off the cuff.
“I really wanted this job. Because I felt as if I knew this community. “I played here,” Campbell said. He went on to explain that in terms of team identity and culture, this squad would adopt the identity of the city of Detroit. “The city has been down. It’s”I discovered a way to overcome adversity,” Campbell added. “This team will kick you in the teeth…” “And when you knock us down, on the way up, we’ll bite a kneecap off…” We’re going to get up. And if you knock us down again, we will stand up and bite off the other kneecap.”
The video was both thought-provoking and newsworthy. Memes arose – the Detroit Lions were all about biting kneecaps – and went viral, some affectionate, but most incredulous and convinced that here, in the person of a coach who resembles 10,000 auto workers in Detroit, only a little larger, was another reason to make the Lions the butt of the joke.
