Lions owner Sheila Ford Hamp gave a strong vote of confidence Wednesday in head coach Dan Campbell and general manager Brad Holmes with the club struggling through year two of a major rebuild.
Speaking to reporters at the team facility, Ford Hamp said she's "frustrated" just like the fans with the Lions stuck at 1-5 this year and 4-18-1 in two years under Campbell and Holmes, but has no plans to make changes this season.
"This was a huge teardown and then turnaround," said Ford Hamp. "We’re really only a third of the way through the season, we’ve got 11 more games to go. So I just don’t want everyone to push the panic button and give up the ship because I think we’ve got the right people in place to pull this off. I truly believe that."
Campbell and Holmes took over a team coming off its third straight last-place finish with few foundational pieces in place after the 2020 season. They overhauled the roster and granted franchise quarterback Matthew Stafford's trade request that offseason. Now the Lions are headed for a franchise-worst fifth straight last-place finish, but Ford Hamp believes the organization is on the right track.
"I know this is difficult, our rebuild is hard, but we really believe in our process. We really believe in, we’re going to turn this thing around the right way, through the draft. It requires patience. It’s frustrating. Am I frustrated? Absolutely. Are the fans frustrated? Absolutely. But I think we really are making progress," she said. "You’ve seen it."
That progress has yet to show up in the record. For that, Ford Hamp pointed to a "very young" team and said "young players are going to make mistakes."
"That’s not an excuse," she said. "That’s a fact."
"It’s hard, really hard to stay disciplined," she said. "No one hates losing more than I do, more than my family does. But it’s just, we gotta gut through it."
While other rebuilding teams like the Giants and Jets have found success this year, the Lions have yet to gain ground in the standings. Asked if Campbell and Holmes are secure in their jobs no matter what happens the rest of this season, Ford Hamp said, "I believe in the leadership. Really, I mean it."
This is far from the Lions' first rebuild. It's just their first one under Ford Hamp, 71, who took over for her mother Martha Ford as the team's primary owner in the 2020 offseason. She said she's giving Holmes and Campbell time to get it right because of the mess they inherited from the prior regime.
Ford Hamp fired former head coach Matt Patricia and former GM Bob Quinn midway through the 2020 season.
"We really had to take it down to the ground level. And it’s been not only on the football side but across the whole organization. We’ve put in a lot of new talent at the top. I really believe in the top leadership in this organization and I think we’ve got the people to do it, to carry this out," said Ford Hamp. "I think that’s what’s different."
As for actual on-field progress, Ford Hamp said, "The positives are, the way we started the season with the offense, obviously. We've gotta get back to that."
The Lions had the NFL's No. 1 offense through the first four games of the season, but a 1-3 record thanks to the NFL's worst defense. And just as they've started to fix their defense, their offense has hit the skids.
"In any turnaround, there’s going to be ups and down. It’s not going to be smooth. Boy, I wish it were," said Ford Hamp. "That’d be simple. But it’s not. There’s going to be fluctuations."
She reiterated, "I really believe in what we got and what we’re going to be. It just takes time."