Giants coach Brian Daboll said this week that when he interviewed Lions coach Dan Campbell for a job a decade ago, Campbell was slamming chairs and hitting walls in the interview. Asked for his recollection, Campbell said Daboll’s story wasn’t false, but it was exaggerated.
“Daboll, he tells that story to everybody,” Campbell said. “He tells it to me every time I see him, we talk, he brings it up again. I don’t remember throwing chairs through the walls or anything. That didn’t happen. But I did demo on chairs. But, yeah, he definitely exaggerated it. But I was sweating and I was out of breath, and I did use a chair.”
Campbell did acknowledge that rather than sitting in a chair answering questions, he got up and moved around in the interview room. But Campbell says he was just demonstrating the way he would coach tight ends, which is the job he was interviewing for.
“Running routes, blocking, everything. It was an hour of technique work,” Campbell said.
It worked, as Campbell got the job as the Dolphins’ tight ends coach, working under Daboll as the Dolphins’ offensive coordinator. Campbell said he remembers Daboll as a coach the players loved to play for, and he’s not surprised that Daboll is a coach of the year favorite in his first year as the Giants’ head coach.