The Lions would like to bring back Carlton Davis III, if the budget allows. And safe to say Davis would like to return.
After one season in Detroit, his respect runs deep for Dan Campbell: "He's my favorite head coach, I ain’t gonna lie, that I ever done played for, bro. That’s why I was out there trying to break my jaw for (him)," Davis said on the most recent episode of the Slightly Decent podcast.
Davis excelled as the Lions' No. 1 corner in his first year with the team before a fractured jaw in Detroit's Week 15 loss to the Bills ended his season. He said he knew Campbell "was a real one" when he took full blame for the Lions' only other loss of the regular season, in Week 2 to the Bucs, after they botched a field goal scenario at the end of the first half by failing to get their kicking unit on the field in time.
"That's something we work on all the time. ... We call it 'Hurricane' and the execution just wasn’t there," Davis said. "After the game, we lost, he went in the locker room, bro, he was crying. He was just like, 'Blame your coach! You can blame me!' He took full accountability. I have never in my 20-something years of playing football had a coach just say, 'I lost the game for y’all,' you know what I’m saying? And there were plenty of other plays guys could have made."
Davis also said that Campbell is the type of head coach, unlike others that he's played for, "to talk to you damn near every day, like, at practice, just walking through the locker room."
"He did this a couple times where during the season I had a good game, he’ll come up to me like, 'Boy, you played your ass off.' He’ll just say that to you, like after the game, 'You're more than just a cover corner -- you're physical, too!' And he’ll say it front of the whole team, he’ll praise you in front of the whole team. That’s the first time a coach ever did that, and not just for me, for other players.
"He’s highlighting, like, 'This guy’s going crazy,' like (Amon-Ra) St. Brown blocking. ... Everybody isn't glorifying that, but he's glorifying that in the team meeting, like, 'This is what I’m talking about!’ So you know when you’re doing sh*t, he watches everything but he’s also going to give you your flowers, too. A lot of coaches don’t do that."
Campbell will also call his players out, of course, but only if "you're hurting the team," Davis said. "And he’s never going to bash you."
Davis, likewise, earned rave reviews from Campbell this season as a feisty, physical corner who handled difficult matchups on the outside. Brad Holmes said a year after acquiring him in a trade with the Bucs that the 28-year-old "played even better this year than he did the year before in Tampa, and he’ll tell you that, too. I thought we got what we wanted to get."
The Lions will look into re-signing Davis, who's headed for free agency. He will likely land a lucrative multi-year deal if he gets there -- somewhere in the range of $15 million per year. Detroit might not have the cap space for that as it budgets for extensions in the near future for the likes of Kerby Joseph and Aidan Hutchinson.
The Lions also have two young corners on the roster in Terrion Arnold and Ennis Rakestraw, plus Amik Robertson under contract through next season. Their best path toward keeping Davis might be placing the franchise tag on him to bring him back for 2025, without making a long-term commitment.