The Lions’ head coach’s speeches contain many components that professors are encouraging students to use in their own work.

Even casual football fans have probably seen a passionate Dan Campbell locker room speech on their social media feed.

His emotional speeches go viral week after week as viewers connect with his intense, genuine delivery. For a new leadership-focused initiative called “Peak,” The Athletic’s Rustin Dodd studied these speeches with help from speech experts and academics.

“Campbell’s speeches align closely with Aristotle’s classical rhetoric theory,” said James Holtje, an adjunct professor at Columbia University’s School of International & Public Affairs, who teaches speechwriting. “They include pathos (emotion), logos (logic), and kairos (timing), along with a performance style similar to a one-man play,” Dodd writes.

Dodd asked Holtje to review several Campbell speeches — though Holtje admitted he’s more of a soccer fan. Still, the subject matter didn’t affect Campbell’s effectiveness. One speech Holtje analyzed was from the 2022 Lions training camp featured on HBO’s “Hard Knocks.”

“Like many of Campbell’s speeches, it was fiery, gripping, and a bit wild. But Holtje saw key techniques he teaches: strong eye contact, vocal strength, storytelling, emotional delivery, and rhetorical tools like alliteration, the rule of three, and vivid specifics,” Dodd writes.

He also spoke to Patrick Barry, a clinical assistant professor at the University of Michigan Law School.

“Campbell often ends wins with the line: ‘This is what great teams do.’ Barry says this phrase is stronger than ‘We’re a great team’ because it suggests an ongoing commitment to high standards,” Dodd writes.

Detroit holds the 28th overall pick in the first round of the NFL Draft. The Lions Wire’s Ryan Love reviews what other teams have done with that pick over the last decade.