Caldwell Downplays Difference He Has Made For Lions
DETROIT, MI – OCTOBER 19: head coach Jim Caldwell of the Detroit Lions looks on during the second quarter while playing the New Orleans Saints at Ford Field on October 19, 2014 in Detroit, Michigan. (Photo by Leon Halip/Getty Images)
Ashley Dunkak
Lions Central
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By Ashley Dunkak
@AshleyDunkak
CBS DETROIT – Players speak highly of Detroit Lions head coach Jim Caldwell, and on Wednesday running back Reggie Bush labeled Caldwell the catalyst for the dramatic turnaround the Lions have experienced. The team lost six of their last seven games in 2013, and this year the Lions have won seven of their first nine.
Caldwell told Karsch and Anderson of 97.1 The Ticket that he does not spend much time evaluating how players respond to him, instead just going about his instruction the way he believes works best.
“More so than anything else I try to tell them what I believe to be the truth, tell them how I believe in going about doing so, often times try and provide some sort of video evidence or past evidence as to what I’m saying is what I believe is the right way to do – because there’s so many different ways to do these things in this league in dealing with players and things of that nature – but I try to do what I’m most comfortable with and what I believe to be true,” Caldwell said. “Sometimes you’re going to get guys that respond to you; sometimes you don’t. But don’t be misled – our good Lord had 12 disciples, and one of them wasn’t too happy, so it’s impossible for me to think that every single player is going to buy in to exactly every single thing I say.
“But I think the guys overall, they’ve taken it upon themselves to look at themselves and say, ‘Hey, you know what, we’re going to be a little bit different’ – the guys who were here before – ‘a little bit different than we’ve been before,’” Caldwell continued, “and I think they’ve set out to do that, so I give them more credit than I’d certainly point toward me.”
Caldwell said he could not compare the feel he has for this locker room with the sense he has had of any other team he has coached previously, but he likes what he sees from players.
“I can tell you this, this is a very willing group,” Caldwell said. “They’re getting to be a very close group, they’re starting to hang out with one another a lot more, you can see it in practice, they have a better feel for one another, and it’s growing and developing all the time. We haven’t hit a real tough stretch, and that’s one of the things that I’ve been kind of waiting to see how we gel, how we bounce back, whether we have resilience in those tough situations.”
The Lions could find themselves in such a scenario soon; they play the Arizona Cardinals (8-1) on the road this week and the New England Patriots (7-2) on the road next week.
