Every week Detroit Lions third-year linebacker Jack Campbell meets one-on-one with defensive coordinator Kelvin Sheppard to go over the game plan.
Campbell wants to know the why behind Sheppard’s schemes and calls. Sheppard said that level of detail is part of what makes Campbell different from a lot of elite linebackers in this league.
“I was Jack’s coach for a few years so the carryover there, him understanding my lingo, how I think now has expanded broader now that I’m able to call the plays,” Sheppard said Thursday. “And he comes up, he meets with me every week. That’s something that he does not have to do but he wants to because he wants to understand, ‘Why are you calling that, Shepp, on second-and-five? Well, why do you call that? Why do you tell the nickel that he needs to do this?’
“He’s asking me this so then he can in turn go back player to player and hold these players accountable. And he wants to be able to – if the green dot, if it goes out, he believes he’s supposed to call the game, and he takes pride in that.”