ESPN's Adam Schefter reported ahead of the Lions-Ravens game on Monday Night Football in Week 3 that the Lions had asked the NFL to "monitor plays" in which Aidan Hutchinson was being targeted with low blocks as he returns from a fractured leg. Schefter highlighted a couple such plays from the first game of the season and said "the Lions have raised the issue with the league office."
"That’s bogus," Dan Campbell said Wednesday. "That’s a bogus report. I don’t know where that came from. Nobody from here ever did that. That’s bull."
In his report, Schefter said that "if you watch (Hutchinson's) performance the first two games of the year, what stands out about that is the fact that it feels like opponents have been going low on him" and claimed that it was evident in Week 1 against the Packers and Week 2 against the Bears. Maybe so, but none of the blocks were illegal.
Campbell clearly doesn't want his team, which is founded on grit, to take on the tone of complainers. He has no time for self-pity. Asked Wednesday if he's noticed a difference in the hits Hutchinson has taken this year, Campbell said, "No. No, man. Nope. Game’s played a certain way, that’s the way it goes, man."
"It doesn’t matter whether we’re doing it or someone else is doing it to our guys," he said. "We know that, and we play accordingly."
Low or not, the hits haven't really slowed Hutchinson down. He has five sacks and three forced fumbles through five games. He's tied for the NFL lead with George Karlaftis of the Chiefs in quarterback pressures, per PFF, tied with Fred Warner of the 49ers for the highest overall defensive grade, and second to Micah Parsons for the highest pass-rushing grade.
Campbell said Wednesday that it's hard to "put a value" on Hutchinson's importance to Detroit's defense, which ranks eighth in the NFL this season, "because I don’t know if there’s a big enough number."
"The number of things that he’s able to do for us in the run and the pass game. He pulls a lot slack, man. You talk about pulling your weight, he pulls his weight and then some. He requires a lot of resources offensively, which helps everybody else out. Guys like him, he’s in that rare world of man, you don’t get the easy way out. He has to beat the nudges, he has to beat the back chip, then the tackle's on him. Or he has to beat the nudge, sometimes the back, the tackle, and the slide's coming to him with the guard also. So, sometimes you may have to beat three, sometimes four. But if that’s the case, somebody else is winning. They have to win.
"What he does is not easy, and I go back to this. He is a complete football player, he does it all. He's disruptive, he's violent, he's high-motor, he's crafty, he's explosive, he's tough, he's competitive. And he does it all. He does it all.”