Dan Campbell’s aggressiveness came from Sean Payton. Now the mentor is impressed.

Denver Broncos new head coach Sean Payton is introduced during a news conference at the team's headquarters Monday, Feb. 6, 2023, in Centennial, Colo. (AP Photo/David Zalubowski)
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Dan Campbell played for Sean Payton, coached for Sean Payton, even served as Sean Payton’s assistant head coach. After spending 13 years under Sean Payton in one capacity or another, it’s safe to say no one has influenced Dan Campbell more than that guy, including in one of the ways that has come to define him most.

“I want us to be aggressive,” Campbell told MLive during a call just days after his hiring in Detroit. “I want us to think aggressively. I don’t want to be known as a conservative team. There will be a time and place to be conservative, but if there’s anything I learned from Sean Payton, it’s, man, you have to keep them on their toes. They have to know you’re not taking your foot off of their throat. That’s what they need to know, really.”

Now, they do.

After a tough season-and-a-half at the helm, Campbell pulled the right strings to pull the Lions out of the gutter ahead of schedule. After a 1-6 start, they won eight of their final 10 games and came within a tiebreaker of becoming just the second team ever to make the postseason after that bad of a start. And the aggressiveness Campbell learned from Payton was a big reason for it, from all the fourth downs and fake punts, to the midseason coaching shakeups along the way, like demoting Anthony Lynn and firing Aubrey Pleasant, all of which worked.

Now the Lions have one of the hottest builds in the league, and with Sean Payton’s fingerprints all over what they’re doing, the mentor says he’s proud to see his coaching tree flourish in Detroit.

“(Campbell’s) smart, he’s tough, he’s passionate,” Payton told reporters during the NFL owners meetings on Monday in Phoenix, according to the Detroit News. “I think we are in the passion business, and certainly Dan is. He’s a tremendous teacher, and he is someone that communicates extremely well with his players. Like, extremely well. Sometimes it’s not what they want to hear, but I think they appreciate that, and it’s really good to see him doing well.

“I felt like we watched some of the toughest games for Detroit there for a stretch, and it was great to see that turn. We’ve seen a 60-some-yard field goal bounce off the crossbar -- I mean, you lose track of the many ways (they lost), but he epitomizes grit and toughness.”

Campbell had that grit and toughness instilled in him while growing up on a cattle ranch in rural Texas, and those traits followed him to Texas A&M, where he became one of the best blocking tight ends in the country. He was taken by the New York Giants in the third round of the 1999 draft.

New York hired a new quarterbacks coach that season. His name: Sean Payton.

Payton served as Campbell’s offensive coordinator in New York from 2000-02, then moved on to become Dallas’ assistant head coach and quarterbacks coach in 2003. Once free agency opened, Campbell elected to follow Payton to Dallas and they spent three more seasons together.

Campbell eventually split from Payton to play with Detroit from 2006-08, before reuniting with him for his final season in 2009.

In his post-playing days, Campbell rose through the ranks in Miami before ultimately becoming the interim head coach in 2015, then made his way to New Orleans when that staff was fired in 2016. He served five seasons as Payton’s assistant head coach, while also working with the tight ends.

“Sean was my mentor, man, and I think the world of him,” Campbell said last offseason. “I learned more under Sean than any other head coach in my time as a player. I was with him for eight of my 11 years as a player under him, and then to coach under him for five years, I got both facets of it, as a player and a coach. And so really everything that I am, or what I’m about, or how I think, really does come from him.”

Now things are moving fast in Detroit. After winning eight of their final 10 games last season, they’ve inked one of the league’s best free agent classes, plus still hold five of the first 81 picks in next month’s draft -- two of which are at sixth and 18th overall. The Lions have emerged as the favorite to win the NFC North, while Campbell currently is the favorite to win coach of the year according to DraftKings and other major books.

No. 2 on that list: Sean Payton.

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