There has been a growing trend toward joint practice sessions in NFL training camps in recent years, but that will not happen for the Detroit Lions in 2021. Lions head coach Dan Campbell stated he doesn’t foresee any joint practices at the team facility in Allen Park or at the home of another team, either.
Campbell noted it isn’t something he’s opposed to, but it just didn’t work out for 2021.
“I actually did reach out to some coaches, and I’ll be honest with you, I got in on it a little bit late,” Campbell admitted in his Sunday pre-practice press conference. “So, a number of the coaches that I called had already had things set up. So, we struck out on that. I think it’ll probably be just us. We’ll be competing against each other for those four weeks of camp.”
The Lions held joint practices in 2018 with the New York Giants and 2019 with the New England Patriots under ex-head coach Matt Patricia. Joint sessions were forbidden in 2020 under the heavy COVID-19 protocols.
Campbell did also say the team has no intention of moving training camp from Allen Park this year. But he did leave the door open for potential alternate sites down the road. His Saints teams, where he was the assistant head coach under Sean Payton, held training camp at the Greenbriar complex in West Virginia for two years.
“Not that that won’t change over the years, but right now, that’s what we’ll do,” Campbell said.
Other than practices at Ford Field, the Lions haven’t held a training camp session away from Allen Park since visiting Novi High School for a night in 2015.
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