The Detroit Lions have suffered a frustrating amount of injuries over the past few years, and many outside the organization are trying to figure out why. In 2024, the Lions suffered more injuries than any other team on defense by adjusted games lost, and they figure to be high on the list again after losing key players like Sam LaPorta, Brian Branch, Kerby Joseph, Christian Mahogany, Levi Onwuzurike, DJ Reed, Terrion Arnold, Alim McNeill, and Marcus Davenport for long spans of the season.
This week on the St. Brown Brothers podcast, 49ers veteran linebacker Fred Warner weighed in on the situation and playfully criticized the Lions’ practicing habits under coach Dan Campbell.
After Warner weighed in on the odd conspiracy theory for the 49ers’ own injury issues, Lions receiver Amon-Ra St. Brown brought up Detroit’s injury struggles. St. Brown then asked whether the 49ers did live tackling in training camp practices. After Warner said no, St. Brown revealed that Detroit does, and Warner offered some feedback for Campbell.
Here’s the full exchange between St. Brown and Warner:
St. Brown: “The Lions have hella injuries every year, too. I’m like, ‘(expletive)!’”
Warner: “Y’all go hard. Ole’ Dan Campbell be over there tellin’ y’all to bite kneecaps. So, at some point, you—”
St. Brown: “Wait, so do you guys go full tackle in camp?”
Warner: “No, no, we would never do that.”
St. Brown: “See, nah, we go full. We go live.”
Warner: “See, at some point, old Dan is going to come to his senses, man, and be like, ‘Listen, this ain’t making nobody better, brother. We can still get our work in without bringing guys to the ground.’”
St. Brown: “Every time a new player comes to our team, they look at us during practice, they be in the locker room like, ‘Y’all practice like that all that time?‘ I just be like, ‘Yeah, this is all I know.’”
Warner: “I get the mindset that he’s trying to instill in y’all, but—because he’s obviously saying you can’t become better at tackling unless you practice tackling, right? I’m sure that’s the mindset, but tackling is about getting all the way there, wrapping the guy—thudding the guy, wrapping him—and then you just don’t got to do the extra bring him to the ground, right? Half the time, guys are just in desperation trying to get somebody on the ground where you’re putting yourself and the person who you’re tackling at risk, right? That’s improper tackling technique, but if you’re doing it correctly, you can be in a position where you can tackle and be like, ‘Okay, I ain’t bringing you all the way to the ground.’”
It’s an interesting perspective from an eight-year veteran who has played for a successful franchise for the entirety of his career. But this has also been something Campbell has defended for years now, including a popular speech he delivered in 2022 after a physical practice as captured by the HBO series “Hard Knocks.”
“I had a couple of you look at me like ‘What the (expletive)? Why are we going live (tackling)?’ I got it. Here’s what I need, man. I need you to trust me. I swear to god I’m not a lunatic. I swear to you. If I absolutely knew we could get to where we need to get without ever putting pads on, I would do it. I swear to you. But also for us as a team to get better defensively, what is the essence of what we do? What are the two things? Pursuit and tackle. Pursuit and tackle. Man, if you don’t work on tackling, if we don’t work on run after the catch, making a move, man, what are we doing? Then we finally get to Week 8 and we come to life because we’ve got enough reps? That’s why I’m doing it. I swear, man, I don’t want to put anybody in jeopardy, but we have to do it, man. I believe it. […] I’ve got a plan, I swear to you. All I think about is you guys. That’s all I think about. That’s all I (expletive) think about is you guys, and how I set you up for the best possible advantage I can give you to have a season. I swear to you, man. I just need you to trust me. That’s all.”
It seems unlikely Campbell will go back on these practice philosophies. In fact, at his end of season press conference, Campbell alluded to getting back to their foundation when it comes to their training camp practices—although he was vague about what that meant.
“I want to get back to some of the things we were doing a couple of years ago,” Campbell said. “And what I mean by that is just getting back to a little bit of what we did at the ground level, just a little bit of the way we train, the way we go about things,” Campbell said. “This is going to be a good training camp for us. We’re going to go back and really sharpen the sword a little bit.”
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