Getty Dan Campbell reacts after a catch against the Patriots in 2006.
Long before he was patrolling the sidelines with the Detroit Lions as head coach, Dan Campbell was walking the exact same path at Ford Field as an NFL player.
Campbell played some of the more statiscially dominating and meaningful games of his career with the lions, getting into the end zone on Thanksgiving Day in 2006. Many fans might not remember that Campbell was actually a two holiday scorer that year, catching a pass for a score against Chicago on Christmas Eve.
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Just like Santa Claus, Campbell delivered for the Lions, and the play may have been lost to the annals of history if not for the folks at Good Morning Football. When Campbell paid the show a visit on Friday, December 24, analyst Peter Schrager walked him down memory lane on the touchdown. Perhaps the biggest revelation? Campbell actually broke off his route on the play.
Dan Campbell scored the last TD of his career exactly 15 years ago today.
He shares what he remembers about his Christmas Eve TD.
“Here’s what I remember honestly. That was not the play. It was supposed to be a shake route so it was supposed to be a post corner. I got a good release, so I said ‘why would I go back to the corner when I got him beat like this?’ So I just stayed skinny and (Jon) Kitna found me,” Campbell said with a laugh. “So it worked out good. That’s what I remember. It was a hell of a throw. Good protection. I didn’t really do much other than just run right there. But it was good. We lost, I remember that too.”
Detroit did end up losing the game 26-21, but Campbell did have a pair of receptions for 31 yards on the day with a score. To that end, it wasn’t his fault at all that the team didn’t get the job done. For his final touchdown catch of his career to come with the Lions is quite a factoid to note, and something which could prove his new job as head coach was written in the stars all along.
Campbell’s Best Career Highlights
Not shockingly, the catch wasn’t Campbell’s only big moment in Detroit as a player. The former tight end was quite a pass catching threat for the Lions in the short time he was with the team. As this clip shows, Campbell made plenty of big plays down the field in his time in the league, some of which came with the New York Giants and Dallas Cowboys, but most of which came with the Lions later in his career.
Campbell was a solid route runner with soft hands, and while many may have assumed he was only a blocking tight end, he seemed to delight in being able to surprise in the red zone and down the field. As these highlights show, he was more than capable of the outstanding play for his offense.
Campbell’s Career Stats
Campbell, a four-year letter winner at Texas A&M, started his NFL playing career with the New York Giants as a third-round pick in 1999, where the journeyman tight end stayed until 2002. From 2003-2005, he played for the division rival Dallas Cowboys before signing with the Lions in 2006. After three seasons in Detroit, Campbell finished his career in New Orleans in 2009, helping the Saints win Super Bowl XLIV.
Following that, he retired and broke into the coaching ranks the Miami Dolphins as a coaching intern in 2010. The following season, he was promoted to the team’s tight end coach, where he served from 2011-2015, later taking over as the team’s interim coach after the firing of Joe Philbin. He led Miami to a respectable 5-7 record after taking over a bad situation. In 2016, he re-joined New Orleans, where he worked under future Hall of Fame head coach Sean Payton before leaving last offseason for Detroit.
As a player, Campbell was solid, hauling in 91 passes for 934 yards and 11 touchdowns in his decade-long career, including 330 yards and four touchdowns across 19 games in Detroit. Perhaps his best play was when he delivered for the team on Christmas Eve.
Campbell will always have that fun fact on his ledger and it’s just one of the many reasons he could go down as a Detroit legend when all is said and done.
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