Was Detroit Lions' Locker Room Celebration Excessive?
After playing a montage dedicated to the Detroit Lions’ first win of the season to open his show, Mike Valenti began speaking on the events of Sunday’s game.
He referred to the Lions as "junior varsity," compared to the Michigan Wolverines and their Big 10 championship win on Saturday evening.
Valenti, who co-hosts The Valenti Show with Rico, has been a noted critic of the Lions. Even with the Lions having clinched their inaugural victory of the 2021 season, which happens to be the first of the Dan Campbell era, the host remained critical of Campbell's play-calling and even had an issue with the locker room celebration following the victory.
“This guy stinks,” Valenti said. “Fourth-and-an-inch from your own 28-yard line, and you try to run razzle-dazzle 400 and throw the ball? Now look, I’ve seen a lot of bad play calls in my life. You watch enough football, you’re gonna see coaches make enough bad moves, and you just get numb to it.”
Valenti went on to explain that, as a viewer, he’s seen plenty of out-of-the-box play calls. However, Campbell’s decision to throw on a fourth-and-1 late in Sunday’s game, which ultimately resulted in a sack-fumble, ranks among the worst in his eyes.
“No one was fooled,” Valenti's co-host Rico Beard said. “You look down the field, everyone was covered.”
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Campbell did indeed get helped out by his offense on the final drive of the game, ultimately scoring a game-winning touchdown with no time left on the clock. The Lions won the game, but this doesn’t excuse Campbell’s coaching struggles in Valenti’s eyes.
“It’ll be lost in, ‘Well, they won the game,’” Valenti said. “It’ll be lost in, ‘Well, you wanted them to win.’ And that’s for, frankly, the unintelligent. The reality is, for about the fifth straight week, your coach hurt the team.”
It has been a struggle for the Lions to crack the win column, an area they were nearly held out of once again thanks to late game struggles. Campbell acknowledged the fact that the offense had put the defense in bad situations during his postgame speech in the locker room.
Valenti pointed this out, and reinforced his negative opinion on Campbell. He called for the organization to hire a better offensive coordinator that can take the play-calling out of the head coach’s hands.
“What I saw from Dan Campbell yesterday was malfeasance of the highest order,” Valenti said. “And I’m thrilled for him, because nobody wants to go to work and be terrible. This guy’s worked his whole life for this job, I can be happy for a human. But, I don’t have to say he did a good job.”
In his opening address, he also said that the postgame celebration was “minor league” and embarrassing.
The Lions did indeed escape the ranks of the winless, but some -- like Valenti -- remain unimpressed.
