Detroit Lions linebacker Jack Campbell has been named the recipient of the 2025 Professional Butkus Award. The award, which is extra recognized for the an identical faculty honors, goes to the highest linebacker within the NFL, as voted on by Butkus Award Choice Committee—a collection of 51 voters from all ranks of soccer, together with NFL entrance workplace members, scouts, and coaches.
“Jack Campbell embodies every part the Butkus Award represents,” the committee mentioned in a press release (by way of Hawkeyesports.com). “His measurement, instincts and disciplined strategy to the place permit him to regulate the center of the sector. He performs with authority, communicates at a excessive degree, and constantly places himself in place to make impactful performs. His rise this season displays not simply expertise, however management and soccer character.”
Campbell’s 2025 season was a breakout for the third-year linebacker. He was named First-Group All Professional after tallying 176 tackles, 9 tackles for loss, 5.0 sacks, three compelled fumbles, and two fumble recoveries.
“He’s extraordinarily invaluable,” Lions coach Dan Campbell mentioned in December. “Proper now, initially he leads the crew in quantity of reps that he’s performed for a season. He’s taken extra reps than anyone on this crew. He performs on kickoff for us and he’s an asset on kickoff after which every part you see on protection. He doesn’t come off the sector, he’s our bell cow, inexperienced dot. And he does—and the man is wise and he’s instinctive and he’s snap-to-whistle all-out, on a regular basis, in observe too. And he doesn’t take performs off, he doesn’t take days off, he goes after the soccer, he’s a ball man. So, he’s invaluable.”
Apparently, that is the second time Campbell has received the award. Again in 2022, he received the school model of the award after a standout yr with the Iowa Hawkeyes. That season, Campbell posted 128 tackles, 5.5 tackles for loss, a compelled fumble, and a fumble restoration.
Campbell is heading into the fourth and closing yr of his rookie contract, though the Lions have a chance to train a fifth-year possibility price a projected $16.4 million. The deadline to train that possibility is Might 1. However the Lions might very properly signal Campbell to a contract extension earlier than then.
