Detroit Lions coach Dan Campbell didn’t hide his frustration when the questions kept circling back to Sam LaPorta.
Campbell had already addressed the tight end’s recent controversial comments from earlier this week on the “Pardon My Take” podcast, but the topic kept coming up anyway. After a point, the Lions coach made it clear he was done revisiting it and would rather move on.
“It’s all good, man. You can never take anything personal when you start talking about business,” Campbell expressed, before a reporter tried to ask one more question about LaPorta.
“That is why business and football, they do not belong with each other. But, it is the world we are in.
It makes the world go around, for all of us.”
He then shut the exchange down more forcefully and ended the media session in a hurry.
“I am not answering anything. I mean, I have answered this I don't know how many times.
So, I said I did not want this to be a distraction. And now, it is becoming one, since you keep asking these things.
That's why.”
The discomfort around the situation is obvious, but nobody inside the organization is about to pile on LaPorta, especially with a contract issue in the mix.
Jack Campbell said as much during an appearance on 97.1 The Ticket this week, stressing that the situation hasn’t spilled into the locker room.
“I don’t want to overstep my boundaries. But I know Sam’s a hell of a player, and the front office does a hell of a job, so I think it will work itself out,” Jack Campbell told 97.1 The Ticket this week. :But it’s not, like, lingering in the locker room or anything.
Everyone knows, it’s a business. Brad does such a good job.
So now it’s up to him to figure out how they can. But nowadays I feel like you can do so much stuff with the cap.
“I’m not a business guy or know much about the cap and all that, but I feel like you can figure out how to restructure things and move this and that and make it not count against the cap as much ... But they do have some unique decisions to make, because I’m like, we’re gonna have to figure what to do with BB (Brian Branch), too.”
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