The 2023 NFL season is officially on after a wild start on Thursday night between the Kansas City Chiefs and the Detroit Lions. There was a hype surrounding the Lions heading into this game that hasn’t been seen in Detroit for a very long time, but not many people expected the Lions to go on the road and beat the defending Super Bowl champs in week one. Well, that’s exactly what they did. Detroit is now 1-0 after a 21-20 win at Arrowhead, and one play in particular that helped the Lions get the win last night came in the first quarter when Dan Campbell called a fake punt from inside their own 20-yard line.

“It seeps into us and our confidence on the field,” Lions QB Jared Goff said according to an article from NFL.com. “The backed-up fake punt was pretty ballsy, but it worked.”

At this point in Dan Campbell’s tenure with the Lions, calls like that aren’t that surprising anymore. He has done it before, and it’s worked sometimes, and sometimes it hasn’t. It worked on Thursday, and it led to a Lions touchdown. That’s part of his style, and it’s going to keep happening.

“That is something that (special teams coordinator Dave) Fipp and I talked about,” Dan Campbell said in regards to the fake. “We knew there was going to be a right time to do it. I felt like that was the right time to do it.”

Based on the result of the play, it seems like Dan Campbell was right, and because it worked, he’s going to receive a lot of praise because of it. However, there are times that calls like that don’t work, and then people question his play-calling. That’s what makes these plays so ballsy, and so far, it’s worked out pretty well for Campbell and the Lions.