Dan Campbell accidentally revealed the obvious for Detroit Lions: He's the man.

Dan Campbell is the man. Not Ben Johnson. Not Aaron Glenn. Not Jared Goff or Aidan Hutchinson or Amon-Ra St. Brown.

Brad Holmes is also the man, or the co-man, if you will (though it's not as catchy), because Campbell isn’t in the position he’s in if not for Holmes, and vice-versa. The Detroit Lions head coach and the Detroit Lions general manager are that connected, that simpatico.

But really, Campbell is the man. It’s his show Sunday to Sunday or, as in the case of this week, Sunday to Thursday, wait 10 days, and then back to Sunday.

Campbell would never say he’s the man — let's face it, he doesn’t need to — but he finally kinda said it last week, even if it was inadvertently. And that's a good thing, proper and true. It came out during his explanation of describing Johnson’s role and, for that matter, Glenn’s role, too.

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“I mean our coordinators know every week I go in there and say, ‘Here’s how we’re going to win this game,’ because I see it with three phrases. Their job is they’ve got one track, one-track mind: ‘How do we move the football? How do we stop the football defensively?’ But there’s a way to win a game, and so sometimes that means you have to play the game a little different offensively and use your defense or special teams, or, vice-versa, use the other two units.”

Got that?

No?

Let me break it down from Campbell-ese. The head coach is the one who says: “Here’s how we’re going to win this game.”

It’s his idea. His plan. His responsibility. If the Lions lose, it’s his fault. If the Lions win, he gets the credit.

Now, this isn’t to say his coordinators and coaches in general don’t make a difference. Of course, they do. They have their plans — Johnson's is "How do we move the football?" while Glenn's is, "How do we stop the football defensively?" — but the game plan is a collaboration. Managing a game is as well.

The seed for that comes from Campbell. It’s his brainchild, and he’s the one who tasks Johnson and Glenn — and from them, everyone else — on how to adjust the offense and the defense and even the special teams (run by Dave Fipp) to beat the upcoming opponent.

This is his vision.

And as good as Johnson has been designing and calling plays, and as much as Glenn improved at rearranging the defensive parts the last half of last season, their visions are his visions. He sees what they see.

As he said Friday of Johnson:

“Look, I always thought a lot of Ben. … I’ve had a lot of faith in him. I’ve known him for a long time. … He and I have the same-type vision offensively, and that helps me with him. We see the game very much the same way.”

See what he did there? That sort of balance isn’t easy. He is praising Johnson and the job he is doing. He is also explaining that he knows a little about offense, too, and that he understands football. He just isn’t doing it in a look-at-me kind of way.

Campbell has expressed similar thoughts about Glenn, but in a way that would never undermine his confidant and friend.

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Part of a head coaching job is empowerment. Another part is temperament.

Last season, when the Lions began 1-6, it was Campbell taking responsibility for the poor start. And when the Lions got blasted in Charlotte on Christmas Eve? A loss that essentially cost them the playoffs?

Campbell said it was him and him alone.

“We weren’t ready emotionally, physically, mentally for that game,” he said. “You say things but ultimately when you play that way, that falls on me.”

He didn’t point to a coach, or a player, or even a single play, really. He talked about lessons learned as a team learns how to win, and as a coach learns how to help a team win.

He made it clear it was his show without saying it was his show. He’s secure that way, comfortable with himself, confident enough to help deflect credit when he’s due some and absorb blame even if it’s not all his.

Think about it this way: His tact and persona are at least part of the reason Johnson is so highly thought of in NFL circles. Yes, Johnson is a promising young offensive coordinator, but the offense began to change when Campbell took over play-calling duties.

Besides, there is a difference in creating a playbook on your own and creating a playbook as part of a larger system, someone else’s system, as Johnson has done with — and for — Campbell, though Campbell, of course, wouldn’t say that.

He will, however, give out self-revealing nuggets that are a byproduct of an explanation about something else. Such as when he said he was the one who tells the coordinators: Here’s how we’re going to win.

“The test with being a coordinator is certainly every week’s going to be different,” Campbell said. “We’re going to have some injuries. We’re going to have some people down and that falls into, ‘Alright, with what we’ve got now going into this game versus this opponent, what’s going to give us the best chance to move the ball?’ And like I tell (Johnson) all the time, it’s not always going to be about the yardage or, ‘I need you to put up 30 this week ...’ —there’s so many things that go into play.”

That sounds like the man, too. It was refreshing to hear.

As a reminder of what rests on his shoulders, for one. And as a reminder of what he is trying to build and, more critically, how he is building it.

Campbell may play well for the cameras, but that’s just him being who he is. It’s easy to get sidetracked by the effortless charisma and passion in his tone. Look at Charles Barkley, who admitted he didn’t like football in high school because he didn’t like getting hit; he said he’d like a do-over so he could play for Dan Campbell now.

It seems everyone would like to play for him these days. And, yeah, part of that is his ability to come across as authentic. But part of that is his mind and his understanding of a complex and multi-layered game.

It’s about time he finally fessed up that the strategy starts with him — that he's the man — even if he did it unintentionally. That's part of his mojo too.

Contact Shawn Windsor: 313-222-6487 or swindsor@freepress.com. Follow him on Twitter @shawnwindsor.

This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Dan Campbell is the man for the Detroit Lions; let's not kid ourselves