I don’t want to say I’m in awe of the Detroit Lions, but I’m pretty close.

After they beat the Packers 34-31 on Thursday night, I had a cacophony of different thoughts in my head. Today, in the cruel light of day, one big one lingers: the Lions have a really impressive structure, and I think it’s only possible because of Dan Campbell.

I’ve shared a lot of thoughts about Campbell since he became the Lions head coach. He certainly seems intense, and comes across as a bit of an acquired taste. But one thing he is for sure is a strong, centralizing force for the Lions. His identity is theirs, and they reflect his philosophy about football perfectly. Aggression, discipline, execution — these all flow from Campbell and his drive to bite the kneecaps off everyone he comes across.

He’s not just some meathead, though. Yes, he comes across as a bit of a lunk sometimes, but he’s also set up an interesting power structure in Detroit. Somewhat uniquely, Campbell doesn’t call plays for the Lions on either side of the ball, delegating that duty to talented coordinators Ben Johnson and Aaron Glenn instead. He clearly weighs in, usually to tell his offense to go for it on fourth down, but he seems largely content to let his coaches coach.

I think that’s noteworthy, and I wonder if it’s a model the rest of the league will trend toward following Detroit’s success. I think it’s a hard sell for prospective head coaches, in a way. Most guys get their head coaching gigs because of their playcalling acumen, usually ascending from quarterbacks coach to offensive coordinator to head coach. “I’ve climbed this far by doing things my way, but now I’m going to cede that to another coach” is a hard thing to live and a harder thing to pitch. If you’re just going to have this other guy do this very important job, why wouldn’t your prospective employer just hire the other guy and have him do what they want you to do?

But Campbell shows this approach can work, and I wonder if it’s something that could open the door to different types of coaches getting shots at head coach jobs. People have long talked about Kansas City Chiefs special teams coordinator Dave Toub as a great potential head coach, but his path to a head coaching job seems murky, if he even wants one. But he’s the exact kind of coach who could pull off what Campbell does, in theory.

Being a special teams coordinator requires in-depth knowledge of the whole roster. YOu have to construct your units mostly from the leftovers of the offense and defense, and the players you have available will vary from week to week even more substantially than the offense and defense will. You really have to know what people can do to succeed as a special teams coordinator, and I wonder if that isn’t the perfect recipe for success to become the CEO-style coach we see in Campbell.

Maybe Campbell is a special case. It wouldn’t be the first time in history a team achieved success through the vision of a singular individual (along with some great players, too). But it’s hard to ignore the way in which he succeed, and were I about to hire a head coach, I might be tempted to try to duplicate the ways in which Campbell’s Lions are getting things done.