Detroit Lions head coach Dan Campbell claimed a win was never in doubt after watching his team pull off an upset victory over the Kansas City Chiefs on Thursday.
Campbell coached the Lions to a 21-20 win over the Super Bowl champions that, according to him, taught him nothing as he already knew how capable his players were heading into it.
“I didn’t learn anything, I got verification on what I already knew, and this is a resilient team,” he told reporters. “It already was a resilient team and we added pieces to that resilient team, so we’re built to handle some stuff and we did that against a very good opponent.
“We expected to win this game. We came in here and we knew what we needed to do, and we knew it wasn’t going to be easy and we did that. Really what it means is that’s one [win]. That’s one. So, we’ve got to clean up our issues. It hurt us on some stuff and be ready for Seattle in 10 days. That’s what it is.”
The Lions have registered the first win of the new 2023 NFL season, starting their campaign off at 1-0 after winning eight of their final 10 games last season.
The Chiefs, meanwhile, were without two of their most important players on the night. Travis Kelce was ruled out with a knee injury ahead of the game while Chris Jones is still sitting out voluntarily in a bid to land a new deal.
That doesn’t take anything away from the Lions, however, especially as they still weren’t favored to win despite the key absences.
