Imagine this. It's Week 1 at Ford Field, moments before kickoff, and here come the Lions out of the tunnel. And leading the way is Dan Campbell with an actual Lion by his side. Who says no?
Well, PETA probably.
But if it were up to Campbell, a pet Lion would accompany him at all times in his new role as the Lions head coach. He's even mentioned it to owner Sheila Ford Hamp.
"I’ll tell you what I would really love to do, just in general, and I've talked to Sheila about this," Campbell said on the Pardon My Take podcast. "I don’t think we're going to be able to do it, but I would love to literally just have a pet lion. Just a legit pet lion on a chain, a big-ass chain, and he really is my pet. We just walk around the building, we go out to practice, we’re in 7 on 7, we’re behind the kicker when he’s kicking."
One Pride, right?
"I don’t know if PETA’s gonna allow that, it’s gonna be hard," Campbell said. (But) we would take great care of it. It would be fed well, it would be petted, it would be manicured. I might end up losing an arm because of it, but that would be even better because it would validate that this a freaking creature now, this is an animal, this thing is from the wild."
The obvious follow-up: would Campbell sacrifice an arm to his Lion to win a Super Bowl in Detroit?
"Yes," he said, before the question could even be finished. "Yes."