Two weeks into his first shot as an NFL head coach, Dan Campbell stood inside a winning Miami Dolphins locker room wearing a look of exhausted pride. He spoke with gratitude and enthusiasm. But, ultimately, he spoke like someone who’d been there before.
“To watch the way you guys played and practiced all week,” he began, almost wincing in emphasis as he finished his thought, “it’s inspiring.
“I would do anything for you guys.”
In 2015, off to a horrible start and in desperate need of change, Miami fired Joe Philbin and made Campbell its interim coach. He was just five years removed from a playing career that ended with an 0-16 team and a Super Bowl victory in back-to-back seasons.
With Miami, Campbell was asked to reintroduce the concept of a team to a group of individuals who had gotten lost. Nobody asked him to unveil a revolutionary scheme or reinvent the wheel during what would become a…
