Bears quarterback Caleb Williams wasn’t happy with a hit he got from Lions linebacker Jack Campbell on Thursday. But Campbell did exactly what he was coached to do, hitting Williams near the sideline when Williams didn’t get out of bounds first.
Lions wide receiver Amon-Ra St. Brown said on his podcast that Lions head coach Dan Campbell told the entire team that Williams had a habit of running to the sideline but went back in at the last second. Dan Campbell reminded his players that it is legal to hit Williams as long as he is inbounds, and Jack Campbell followed his coach’s instructions when he gave Williams a hard but legal hit.
“Before the game, during our team meeting, Dan was talking to us and he showed clips of Caleb going out of bounds, going in and then going out. He said, ‘No, you don’t do that. you don’t.’ ” said St. Brown. “They were clips of him doing that and him saying, ‘If he does this, we’re going to beat him up. I have already warned the referees, the referees know.’ So when it happened in the game, I already knew there was no flag hitting Jack on the butt, we were like, ‘Yes!’ Everyone at the Bears was like, ‘Where’s the flag?’ We say, ‘He went out, he came back in and got it.'”
It was a clean, legal goal, and the Lions defended Williams exactly the way teams should: If he keeps trying to push back despite having a clear path to the sideline, he’ll get plenty of hits like that.
