Dan Campbell has already proved he has secret recipe to take Detroit Lions to Super Bowl

No one wants to say it will be easy, because it won’t be.

But as the Detroit Lions embark on a season unlike any in a very long time — if ever — don’t be surprised if they improve on last year’s remarkable ride and get to their first Super Bowl.

The reason: Dan Campbell already has the recipe for success. And judging by his demeanor before Wednesday’s training camp kickoff, he’s ready to cook.

The Lions coach has used his ingredients — a solid and sometimes spectacular core of players provided by his excellent general manager, Brad Holmes, as well as continuity among his three coordinators — to keep everything at a consistent boil.

A 9-2 finish in 2022 turned into a 12-5 record last year and a 2-1 postseason mark that took the Lions to the NFC title game for the first time since the 1991 season. That’s a 22-8 record in the Lions’ past 30 games.

So what’s Campbell’s main ingredient in all of this? What’s his secret sauce? Easy: hatred of complacency .

JEFF SEIDEL: Everything is bigger about these Detroit Lions — including the expectations

“I just believe it’s about, man, if you start patting yourself on the back,” he said, “and you don’t believe that everything that it took to get there, it’s going to take that again and then some, then you’ll just — you’re just going to be stuck. You’ll just be average. You’ll be back to a 9-8 season or 8-9 season.”

Campbell acknowledged it isn’t easy to tell himself, his staff and his players that they simply have to be better than they were the previous season. Yet, he has achieved exactly that.

“We found a way to get it done, we found that recipe,” he said. “We know what it’s going to take. We understand how to play with each other, and so I think you never lose that.”

Then Campbell said something else that speaks to why he and other coaches and athletes like him excel. He spoke about failure, which is probably the strongest motivator in sports. Winning is great, but I’ve heard athletes and coaches speak countless times about the inordinate power the fear of failure holds over them.

When Campbell was a second-year tight end with the New York Giants in 2000, the team went 12-4 under Jim Fassel and lost the Super Bowl to Brian Billick’s Baltimore Ravens.

“We came up a little short,” he said, “and the next year we had the exact same team. The exact same team.”

But not the same mindset.

Pretty soon, Campbell remembered, players cheered pad-less practices: “Hey guys, we’re not going to go pads today. Everybody goes, ‘Yeah, all right!’ ”

And putting in less time: “Hey, guys, get out of here a little bit early.”

“We went 7-9 the next year after going 12-4,” he said, “and I will never forget that, ever.

“So we’re not going to lose our identity. That is the most important thing to me, and I won't sacrifice it for anyone or anything. I told the team, ‘know that,’ and they know that.”

DISTANT REPLAY: 25 years after Barry Sanders' retirement, he — and Detroit Lions — still owe an apology

At this point, I wouldn’t call the Lions a dynasty littered with surefire Hall of Famers. But they are an excellent team and among the favorites to get to the Super Bowl, just like they were the favorites to win the NFC North last year.

Campbell has spoken about the difficulty of getting back to where the Lions finished last season, just four points shy of the Super Bowl, by saying it would be “twice as hard.”

I don’t know if you can quantify a difficulty level, but Campbell knows the Lions have entered a different tier of difficulty, filled with higher expectations and tougher opponents.

Put another way, the Lions have earned their seat at the grownups’ table. They’ve gotten there with hard work, and they know only more of it will keep them there.

Contact Carlos Monarrez: cmonarrez@freepress.com. Follow him on Twitter @cmonarrez .

This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Dan Campbell has already proved he has secret recipe to take Detroit Lions to Super Bowl