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Detroit Lions head coach Dan Campbell knows that the path to next year’s NFC Championship game will be much more difficult to reach than this year’s.
After the Lions loss to the San Francisco 49ers on Sunday, Campbell was candid about the reality of winning once you’ve already done it.
“I told those guys, this may have been our only shot,” Campbell said after the game. “Do I think that? No. Do I believe that? No. However, I know how hard it is to get here. I’m well aware. It’s going to be twice as hard to get to this point next year as it was this year. That’s the reality. And if we don’t have the same hunger and the same work, this is a whole nother thing.”
After not winning a playoff game for more than 30 years, the Lions now have a target on their back heading into next season after proving themselves in this year’s playoff. Campbell is aware of that target, and he seems to be ready for the challenge.
The Lions took a big step forward this season. They put together a solid 9-8 season last season and then blossomed into one of the league’s best teams this year to win the NFC North and put the NFL on notice.
Next year, teams will know what to expect from Detroit, which Campbell believes makes things much more difficult.
“Once we get to the offseason, we got no shot of getting back here,” Campbell said. “I don’t care how much better we get or what we add or what we draft. It’s irrelevant. It’s going to be tough. Everybody in our division’s going to be loaded back up and you’re not hiding from anybody anymore. Everybody’s going to want a piece of you.”
Regardless of how much more difficult next season will be for the Lions, they can celebrate a successful 2023 season. Things didn’t end the way they would have liked, but they brought success to a franchise that has seen very little of it this century.
Now, Campbell and Detroit will begin preparation for what he deemed will be a much more strenuous season.
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