{"id":905508,"date":"2026-05-30T18:30:19","date_gmt":"2026-05-30T18:30:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/905508\/"},"modified":"2026-05-30T18:30:19","modified_gmt":"2026-05-30T18:30:19","slug":"dan-campbell-wants-his-players-to-fight-for-a-spot-on-the-lions-final-roster","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/905508\/","title":{"rendered":"Dan Campbell wants his players to fight for a spot on the Lions’ final roster"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Detroit Lions<\/a> are looking to improve on last season\u2019s performance and reestablish themselves as a strong and efficient force in the NFC North. Dan Campbell wants his players fully motivated and revealed that no one has a guaranteed spot on the roster during this stage of preparation.<\/p>\n

\u201cA lot of guys have done really well for two days in pajamas,\u201d Campbell<\/a> said to the press during de Organized Team Activities. \u201cI\u2019m done with the hype of a pajama party in May. . . . We\u2019ll find out in training camp who\u2019s who. This will be the most competition we\u2019ve had. Top-tier competition. This will be good, across the board.\u201d<\/p>\n

The head coach also added: \u201cNobody\u2019s gonna win a job in the spring. I\u2019m not hyping anybody up. Not in May.\u201d<\/p>\n

The new faces in Detroit<\/p>\n

The Detroit Lions enter the 2026 NFL<\/a> season with a heavily re-engineered roster, highlighted by first-round draft pick Blake Miller, a highly reliable tackle out of Clemson who is immediately throwing himself into the fire by competing for a starting spot right alongside the veterans. Alongside him, key offseason acquisitions like running back Isiah Pacheco, center Cade Mays, and defensive additions like Roger McCreary and D.J. Wonnum have completely transformed the depth chart. <\/p>\n

\"Isiah<\/p>\n

Isiah Pacheco joins the backfield of the Detroit Lions<\/p>\n

To earn their place in the lineup, Campbell\u2019s philosophy remains unyielding: pedigree means absolutely nothing if it isn\u2019t backed up by intense, mistake-free execution. Following the Lions\u2019 unique approach of skipping a traditional rookie minicamp to throw everyone directly into full team workouts, Campbell expects these new faces to adapt instantly, pick up the complex schematics with zero grey area, and prove they possess the gritty, high-effort mentality required to fight for a spot in Detroit\u2019s cultural foundation.<\/p>\n

Campbell decided to skip rookie minicamp<\/p>\n

While rookie minicamp can be a valuable opportunity to get a closer look at new faces, Campbell admitted that he feels it is largely more of the same. As a result, the Lions were the only team to opt out of holding those sessions.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s the same way every year, they train for the Combine or for all of those drills, they don\u2019t train for football,\u201d Campbell said via prideofdetroit.com. \u201cSo, we just got our hands on them for, I guess, going on week three, something like that. So, we just want to be smart with these guys, make sure they\u2019re ready to get on the field to do\u2013even though it\u2019s not a lot to be able to do that, we don\u2019t want any setback.\u201d<\/p>\n

The first challenges for the Lions<\/p>\n

The Detroit Lions are kicking off their 2026 campaign with a pretty wild mix of home energy and heavy road tests. They start things off at Ford Field hosting the New Orleans Saints, giving Dan Campbell an immediate reunion against his former squad. <\/p>\n

After that, they face a quick turnaround for a massive Thursday Night Football showdown on the road against the Buffalo Bills, followed by a return home to face the New York Jets. They wrap up this opening five-game stretch back on the road with consecutive away matchups, first hitting primetime on Sunday Night Football against the Carolina Panthers before flying out west to battle the Arizona Cardinals.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Detroit Lions are looking to improve on last season\u2019s performance and reestablish themselves as a strong and…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":905509,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2071],"tags":[6214,146,113,2506,7,147,6],"class_list":["post-905508","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-detroit-lions","tag-dan-campbell","tag-detroit","tag-detroit-lions","tag-detroitlions","tag-football","tag-lions","tag-nfl"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/116664953953912957","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/905508","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=905508"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/905508\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/905509"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=905508"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=905508"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=905508"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}