Late this season, Dan Campbell likened Jack Campbell to Luke Kuechly. Kuechly won the Dick Butkus Award as the top linebacker in the country in his final season at Boston College, then won it again in his third season in the NFL. Jack Campbell won the Butkus Award in his final season at Iowa ... and just won it again in his third season in the NFL.
"There’s a lot of similarities," Dan Campbell said in December, having coached against Kuechly twice a year for four years during their time in the NFC South. "Freaking smart, he knows what's coming before it’s there, high energy, never gets tired. Freaking runs all the way down the field, runs back to the huddle, gets everybody lined up. He’s constantly barking out communication, going after the football. You may get him once. You’re not going to get him twice."
For a young Jack Campbell, Kuechly was a football idol. Once Campbell knew he was meant to be a linebacker, he wanted to play the position like Kuechly, a five-time All-Pro and Defensive Player of the Year winner with the Panthers. In fact, the first time Campbell met Kuechly, "I didn’t want to sound like a fan, but I told him that he’s unbelievable at what he does and I grew up watching him and there’s a lot of people that want to be like him."
(Yeah, he might have sounded like a fan.)
"But in my mind, Luke Kuechly is one of the best ever," Jack Campbell said, "so I feel like to get that comparison is like, I’ll just be Jack Campbell. It’s very humbling, but at the same time, Luke Kuechly was on a whole different level. So for me to get that is encouraging, but I just gotta focus on myself and not push to make plays. Now that it's out there, I’m gonna be hearing this comparison now, so not letting that change the way I play. Just stick to what got me here and keep improving."
Really, that's all Campbell has done since he arrived in Detroit as the 18th overall pick in 2023. The pick was panned as a reach by Brad Holmes at a non-premium position, even though Campbell was one of a small batch of players in that year's draft that the Lions had graded as a first-round talent. Even Campbell, who has no use for social media and no time for noise, remembers what was said.
"I’ll never forget getting drafted here and a lot of mixed emotions on it, and I just kind of used it," Campbell said this season when he was on his way to being named a Pro Bowler, and a first-team All-Pro, for the first time.
He didn't say it spitefully. He shared it like a lesson, for himself and for others.
"And that’s the thing, I hope people look to it and just look at every year, just the process. You don’t give up on someone because they come in and can’t do something right away. And I feel like it’s good for me to learn, and I hope someday I can pass this on to my family, my kids, I hope my brothers — and this is stuff that I’ve learned from my grandparents, my parents — every day just getting a little bit better. And over time, a lot of people aren’t going to notice it overnight, but you jump year to year, you’re like, 'Oh, he’s getting better, he’s getting better,'" Campbell said.
He credits "mundane improvements," like establishing a daily routine during the season that's allowed him to go three years in the NFL without missing a game. For Campbell, taking care of his body "starts with lifting, and lifting heavy throughout the season, even though it sucks and you don't really want to do it," he said with a smile, like when he's driving into the facility in the pre-dawn darkness thinking about single-leg rear-foot-elevated squats.
"Or like, I do shoulder maintenance throughout the whole year, and after practice I just want to come in here (to the locker room) and sit and just do nothing, but going out there and doing it. And it’s super simple. It takes, like, 15 minutes, but just staying on top of all that stuff -- neck, shoulders, lower body -- that’s always going to be a thing."
He's strict about his diet and his sleep, even though "it’s not fun to go to bed early every night." He's devoted to studying film, even though there are plenty of things he'd rather be doing in his free time at home. When he returns from the facility at the end of each day, what he'd like to do is "is go take my dog for a walk and talk to my wife about the day — which we do — but it’s not as much as I’d want," Campbell said. Which is fine. Sometimes his wife just watches film with him, their Bernese Mountain Dog sleeping through it.
"I’m not a guru, by any means, and I’m not the smartest person in the room, but you go home, you sit down and you just gotta take extra time to memorize the down and distances, what their tendencies are, what calls we’re going to be in and how that directly affects me, and try to be intentional with it," said Campbell.
Campbell used to teach his wife the calls so that she could quiz him. It was a nice idea in theory. His wife would hold the play sheet and read the first few lines of a given call, "like, 'hey, it’s 3rd and 3, quick nickel, jet,' and then I’d finish the call. And then she couldn’t pronounce the first word, so it was just like, nah, we’re done with this," Campbell laughed. "I just do it myself now."
All the homework paid off. Campbell played with more anticipation than ever this season. He sniffed out screens. He snuffed out runs. He had a consistent bead on the offense, which is what he admired most about Kuechly: "His pre-snap stuff is unbelievable. Especially now, knowing the play before, I'm working toward that." Campbell's 176 tackles were second most in the NFL. He also set career highs in tackles for loss (9), sacks (5) and forced fumbles (3).
And he played every defensive snap for the Lions other than a handful at the end of their Week 2 blowout of the Bears. After he took Brian Branch's cleat to the mouth in Detroit's Week 3 win over the Ravens, Campbell was spewing blood in the huddle while spitting out the calls. He downplayed it a couple days later, his lip stitched back together, "embarrassed because I’m the first person probably in the Campbell lineage to go to a plastic surgeon."
"I'm telling you, bro, anyone can do this," he said. "They act like it's crazy. You get in a game, Monday Night Football, your adrenaline's going, you don't feel a thing."
Campbell, who turns 26 in August, is eligible for an extension this offseason, along with Jahmyr Gibbs. Holmes said that locking up the two first-round picks from 2023 is one of the Lions' priorities. Neither one has to get done this offseason, with both players under contract through 2027 via their fifth-year options, but the longer the Lions wait, the more those contracts will cost. Both will command top-dollar deals at their respective positions.
The night the Lions drafted Campbell, they envisioned the centerpiece to their defense for the next decade. Three years later, Campbell has been named the top linebacker in the league, and continues to ask himself a simple question: "How can I improve?"