The bye week is typically used for rest and relaxation. Dan Campbell got a little bit of that, but he used the break as a chance for self reflection, as well. Monday he told reporters there are three big areas of improvement from the first half of the season.
"I think the obvious are the turnover-takeaway ratio, we need to be better on both sides," said Campbell. "Red zone, both sides. And then third-quarter production, or lack thereof, we can be better on both sides. So, I think those are the three things that we’ve kind of came away with. There’s other areas, but those were the big ones collectively, as a team."
The Lions take that message from Dan Campbell into a new week of work ahead of the Chargers. Campbell said they’re in a good spot after eight games, but the Lions need to take it another notch up for the next nine.
"By December we need to be playing our best football collectively and up to date, like the Chargers, we need to play our best football game," said Campbell. "We still have left so much out there and as good as we played to get six wins, we’ve been able to complement each other, but yet I would say we have not played our best football collectively, offense, defense and special teams."
The biggest hope coming out of the bye is that injured players got their necessary rest and that the reinforcements will be ready. RB David Montgomery, OL Frank Ragnow, and OL Jonah Jackson are all trending in the right direction and were all out on the field to start the week at Allen Park, moving around ahead of taking full pads on Tuesday. Campbell said he's hopeful the three will be ready for the Chargers.
“All three of those guys moved around today," said Campbell. "They were out there. Today was really more priming the pump, get them ready for tomorrow. But we did some individual, some group, did a special teams segment and they were all involved, all three of those guys.”
Another possible addition would be Donovan Peoples-Jones who the Lions acquired at the deadline this past week. Campbell said they acquired him to use him and that they think he can help, but they want to be sure that he’s ready. He’s already getting acclimated and up to speed with the second half of the season ahead.
