Caleb Williams, the Bears quarterback, was not pleased with a hit he received from Lions linebacker Jack Campbell on Thursday. But Campbell was doing exactly what he had been told to do: striking Williams near the sideline if he did not get out of bounds first.
Lions wide receiver Amon-Ra St. Brown stated on his podcast that Lions head coach Dan Campbell informed the entire team that Williams had a pattern of sprinting toward the sideline but cutting back inside at the last second. Dan Campbell informed his players that it is allowed to strike Williams as long as he is inbounds, and Jack Campbell followed his coach’s instructions by delivering a heavy but legal hit on Williams.
“Before the game, at our team meeting, Dan was talking to us and showed us clips of Caleb running out of bounds, then in, then out. He responded, ‘No, you don’t. “No you don’t,” St. Brown replied. “There were clips of him doing that, and he said, ‘If he does this, we’re going to smack his ass. I’ve already alerted the referees, and they know.
So when it happened in the game, I knew there wasn’t a flag. Jack hit his ass, and we said, ‘Yeah!’ Everyone on the Bears said, ‘What? Where is the flag?’ We say, ‘He went out, came back in, and took it.'”
It was a clean, legal hit, and the Lions defended Williams precisely as they should: If he continues to try to cut back inside despite having a clear path to the sideline, he will take a lot of hits like that.
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