To a man, the Lions sense it -- because it's impossible to ignore: "We have all this hype behind us," Tracy Walker said Sunday after the team's first practice of training camp.
"I mean, it's hard not to see it," said Aidan Hutchinson. "We got the TV's on in (the facility) and it pops up. I think it's smart of a lot of our guys to stay off it, because it can get to your head a little bit. We keep the underdog mentality. We haven't won anything yet."
No they have not. The Lions did win eight of their final 10 games last season, but, combined with a 1-6 start, all that got them was a ticket to watch the playoffs from home. Rarely, if ever, has a nine-win team engendered so much optimism, but rarely -- if ever? -- have the Lions been favored to win the NFC North. It would be their first division title since it was called the NFC Central, in 1993.
It's a long road between here and there, with hurdles at every turn. The first one is complacency. The Lions can't get comfortable with being good enough to get noticed. Indeed, asked what worries him most about his team entering the season, Dan Campbell said Sunday, "The hype train."
"This thing has just taken off and is out of control right now," he said. "And that’s fine, as long as we stay focused on the job at hand. I keep going back to that. We have to put the work in and earn it.”
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Take it from Jared Goff. This is a quarterback who knows what pressure really feels like. He spent most of his time with the Rams trying to help the team live up to Super Bowl expectations. So to Goff, "the so-called hype train" for the Lions is a little ahead of its tracks.
"It’s funny to me that you go 9-8, you don’t make the playoffs and now you’re all of a sudden a favorite," said Goff. "Of course we’ve got good players, we’ve got good coaches, we’ve got a good team, but we haven’t done anything. We have some work to do to put a stamp on who we want to be."
Don't get them wrong. The Lions are proud of the strides they've made in two seasons under Campbell. They appreciate the spotlight, which will shine especially bright when they kick off the NFL season against Patrick Mahomes and the defending Super Bowl champs. They have earned the right to feel confident.
"Coming in as a rookie," said Amon-Ra St. Brown, "I don’t think the Lions had any hype, really. From now to then is a huge difference, and I'm glad to say that I was a part of it. I was here for it all. Everyone in this organization is excited for the future, or what's to come."
But it's easy to forget: A year ago at this time, the Lions were coming off their fourth straight last-place finish. If they're proud, they're not yet pleased.
"You have to be careful," said Campbell. "If all you buy into is the talk and everything else that you read, and you forget the work, it’s all for nothing.”
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With that in mind, Campbell will be keeping a close eye in the coming weeks on the team's level of focus -- at practice, in meetings and everywhere in between. And if he feels it start to slip "or we have some guys that are deviating a little bit or they think they've arrived and they haven't, you call them out on it," he said.
"We haven't won a playoff game in what? 30 years?" said Hutchinson. "So I don't think we'll ever be that team that stops putting their foot on the gas, stops having that underdog mentality. We're always going to be coming for the top."
Walker, 28, is one of the Lions' longest-tenured players. He's been through the wringer in Detroit, and doesn't intend to be, well, wrung out to dry. That's why the sudden attention doesn't mean all that much to Walker entering his sixth season with the Lions, "because the people that's giving us the hype right now are the same people that were down on us last year and the years before," he said.
And they'll be down on the Lions again, unless the team puts in the work.
"You have to go earn your right every year," said Campbell. "It doesn’t matter what the players are, the coaches, expectations, where you were, where you’re going. We have to work, man, and this is day one of that.”
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