Lions LB Jack Campbell recovering after scary injury: ‘My faith in God has never been stronger’
By Cole Claybourn Nov 5, 2026The Detroit Lions are preparing for a Week 9 matchup in Miami on Sunday, but much of the team’s attention this week has been on the health of star linebacker Jack Campbell, who has been hospitalized since suffering a neck injury against the Minnesota Vikings on Sunday.
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Campbell, an All-Pro last season, fell face down on the turf and remained motionless after colliding with Vikings tight end T.J. Hockenson early in the fourth quarter. Medical personnel evaluated him on the field before strapping him to a board and transporting him to an ambulance, and he was then taken to a local hospital.
On Wednesday, Campbell provided an update on his condition, saying he had full movement in his lower body and was making progress toward regaining movement in his upper body. He shared that he was taking things one day at a time and remaining positive while leaning on God.
“My faith in God has never been stronger,” Campbell said in his statement. “I know He has a plan for me, and I trust in that plan. I know there may be challenges ahead, but with my faith, my family, and so many people in my corner, I know we’ll get through this.”
His Instagram bio also points to his faith with a reference to Ephesians 2:10, which says, “For we are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.”
STATEMENT FROM JACK CAMPBELL
My family and I want to sincerely thank everyone for the overwhelming amount of love, prayers, and support we’ve received over the past few days. It means more to us than words can express.
I’m incredibly encouraged by the progress I’ve made in such…
— Detroit Lions (@Lions) November 4, 2026
Wednesday’s update marked the first significant sign of progress for Campbell, who has become one of the best linebackers in the NFL since being drafted in the first round of the 2023 NFL Draft out of Iowa. He was a first-team All-Pro and Pro Bowler last season, as well as the NFL’s Dick Butkus Award winner, given to the league’s best linebacker. He became the first NFL player in seven years to have 150-plus tackles and at least five sacks and three forced fumbles. His 176 tackles last year ranked second in the NFL, and his 57 this year put him as Detroit’s leading tackler through seven games.
Campbell has played in every game since being drafted and started all but five of them, and he was named a team captain ahead of this season. Head coach Dan Campbell (no relation) said it’s hard to put into words what his star linebacker means to the team both on the field and in the locker room.
“When you get voted captain, that says a ton, especially with this group of guys that has been assembled,” Dan Campbell said in a press conference Monday. “He earned every bit of that. He’s a guy that’s trustworthy. He’s dependable. He’d give you the shirt off his back. He’s just all heart, man, all effort, and just an unbelievable person.
“He’s down-to-earth, genuine. There’s not a man on this team that doesn’t respect Jack Campbell and care about him.”
Coach Campbell on what Jack Campbell means to the team pic.twitter.com/q4NpLjofui
— Detroit Lions (@Lions) November 2, 2026
Updates on Jack Campbell’s condition were sparse at the beginning of the week. During a press conference Wednesday, Dan Campbell said it was powerful that Jack was able to provide the positive update on his own.
“I know that always helps, to know that he’s improving, because at this point, that’s all you’re looking for — just to know that he is improving,” Dan Campbell said.
As Campbell was being tended to on the field, teammates gathered around him to say a prayer. After the series was over, the Lions defense huddled on the sideline to once again pray for their teammate.
Vikings players were seen kneeling and praying on the field as well, and after the game Vikings head coach Kevin O’Connell said he and the team were “thinking and praying for Jack Campbell.”
“Definitely something that you hate seeing,” O’Connell said. “It’s a competitive, super physical NFC North game, but it’s still hard to talk about the result when you see something like that. So, just thoughts and prayers with him, for sure.”
After the game, which the Lions won 19-15, Dan Campbell gave passionate locker room speech about the team’s resolve and toughness, then took a knee and asked the team to pray with him for Jack Campbell.
Throughout the week, O’Connell has continued to check in about Jack Campbell’s progress, and on Wednesday Dan Campbell praised the Vikings coach for how encouraging and supportive he’s been.
“Kevin O’Connell, man, he’s a class act. Just looking out for him, checking in on Jack,” Dan Campbell said. “I know those guys said a prayer for Jack and that just says a lot about the humanity of it. We are highly competitive. This league is highly competitive, but it is a brotherhood. It just puts things in perspective. These are human beings that have families, real lives, so that was a classy deal, man.”
Jack Campbell and his wife, Megan, welcomed a baby boy in July. He said in his statement that he and his family are thankful for the “overwhelming amount of love, prayers, and support” they’ve received this week. He also thanked the team trainers and medical personnel who tended to him on the field, as well as the doctors and nurses at Henry Ford Hospital in Detroit.
He also thanked his teammates, coaches and everyone in the organization who has supported him since the injury.
“This team is a family to me, and the way everyone has been there for me means everything,” he said. “I’m proud to be a Detroit Lion and couldn’t ask to be surrounded by a better group of people. One thing I’ve learned about Detroit is that this city is built on toughness, resilience, and grit. That’s exactly how I’m going to approach this challenge.
“Please continue to keep me and my family in your prayers. We feel the love, and I can’t thank everyone enough. God is good. My faith is strong.”
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RB Mark Fletcher stars for No. 1 Miami, leads by example knowing ‘what God did for me’
By Cole Claybourn Nov 4, 2026Mark Fletcher Jr. could’ve entered the NFL Draft after last season. Coming off a year in which he rushed for 1,192 yards and 12 touchdowns, the Miami running back likely would’ve been a Day 2 or Day 3 pick with a chance to compete for playing time at the next level.
Instead, Fletcher decided to return for another year of college football.
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With name, image and likeness opportunities now allowing college athletes to earn significant money, staying in school has become a more viable option for some players weighing whether to turn pro. But Fletcher’s decision was driven by something more personal.
“Mentally I’m just not there [ready for the league yet]. I just want to finish my college year,” Fletcher said after last season ended. “I’m having fun right now. This is where I feel God is leading me. I could die happy taking that risk of going back to college instead of declaring. I’ll be OK with my decision no matter how it goes.”
The decision has paid off on the field. After being a key part of Miami’s run to the national championship game last season, where the Hurricanes lost to Indiana, Fletcher’s return has helped Miami open this season undefeated (8-0) and reach the No. 1 spot in the rankings. The fourth-year senior leads the team in carries (94) and rushing touchdowns (nine), while ranking second in rushing yards (457). He’s also caught seven passes for 85 yards and a touchdown.
He scored three touchdowns (two rushing and one receiving) in Saturday’s 38-35 road win over North Carolina to break the school’s career record for combined rushing and receiving touchdowns with 38.
Mark Fletcher Jr. was gone 💨
Mom was hyped after that one ❤️ pic.twitter.com/x3qgCPClwW
— ESPN College Football (@ESPNCFB) November 1, 2026
Fletcher’s decision to stay reflects the growth he’s experienced during his time at Miami, both as a player and as a person. Growing up in Lauderhill, Florida, his parents and teachers told him he exhibited all the signs of a leader. But he was always more comfortable leading through his actions than doing so vocally.
That began to change during his time with the Hurricanes. His coaches encouraged him to become more vocal, and Fletcher said his faith helped him develop the confidence to step outside his comfort zone. He now sees using his voice and platform as a college football player as ways to influence those around him.
That confidence has also given him new ways to share his faith publicly. In a touchdown celebration during the national championship game, he used American Sign Language (ASL) to communicate the message “Jesus loves you.” The idea came from a conversation with teammate Jack Whitehouse, and the two saw it as an opportunity to reach fans in the stands who couldn’t hear Fletcher’s words.
His faith in God has been part of his life from a young age and he credits being raised in a good home for helping establish his faith and his high moral character. Now as a college athlete, he has a more mature and grounded approach to his relationship with God.
“I see God in my everyday life because, simply, He’s my Father,” he recently said in a video with Faith Walker. “He’s my best Friend. I turn to Him in good and hard times. I can talk to Him about any and everything.”
As he got older and progressed through his athletic career, Fletcher experienced plenty of adversity, including injuries, self-doubt and losing his father, Mark Fletcher Sr.
“But God always just kept showing up for me, kept proving to me that I needed to trust in Him,” he said in the video. “He always proved me wrong, even when I was going against the grain and sometimes not even believing in Him. … I found myself questioning God, so He just always showed up for me every single time, no matter what adversity I faced.”
Fletcher’s father passed away a week after his birthday in 2024, and at the time Junior was dealing with injuries and generally being unhappy with how he was playing. It was a difficult time.
“I had every reason to just quit, throw the towel in, and that’s what I wanted to do,” Fletcher Jr. said. “I tried to go to sleep at night, but something in my heart just told me to keep getting back up. For a second, I really went away from God. I tried to do it on my own. I was spiraling and I wasn’t playing how I wanted to play. I was doing everything angry, and God doesn’t even put that feeling in us. He doesn’t make your heart cold. He fills you up.
“So when I just started talking to God and having those conversations with Him and asking Him for healing, how to choose [Him] over the worldly things, everything in my heart just turned out to be for the better. That’s what sparked my journey to have that faith.”
He now sees a little divine providence and a specific purpose for where he is.
“Thank God I play for the Miami Hurricanes because I’m out here at practice every day and I’m around a lot of my teammates who go through things and might get injured, might not be happy with how they’re playing, how they’re performing,” he said in the video. “Shoot, I feel like I done been through it all.
“I still have a lot to learn, but I’ve been injured, not performed how I wanted to, faced a lot of adversity, and God digs me out of the that dark hole that I was in. When I see other teammates turning that way, it’s so funny because I remember myself being in that place, so I just tell them what God did for me.”
Fletcher and the Hurricanes have a marquee matchup on the road at No. 4 Notre Dame on Saturday at 7:30 p.m. ET.
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With Buffalo Bills as Super Bowl contenders yet again, QB Josh Allen trusts ‘God’s timing’
By Kevin Mercer Nov 3, 2026Chances are you’ve heard this before: The Buffalo Bills look like Super Bowl contenders.
They boast a 6-1 record and currently hold a half-game lead over the Denver Broncos and Pittsburgh Steelers for the top spot in the AFC. It’s quite a familiar position for a team that has spent most of the last eight years at or near the top of the conference, accumulating five consecutive AFC East titles (2020-24) and making seven straight playoff appearances during that time.
The 2026-27 Bills seem destined to be right back there again, but this time, they hope to summit a mountain they haven’t yet been able to climb. They hope to advance to the Super Bowl.
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Much of the credit for Buffalo’s sustained success for the better part of a decade rests on the broad shoulders of quarterback Josh Allen. The 30-year-old Firebaugh, California, native transformed a once-middling franchise into a perennial powerhouse virtually overnight when he was drafted out of Wyoming with the No. 7 overall pick in 2018.
Just some Josh Allen highlights to brighten your day #BillsMafia pic.twitter.com/V8k9ylQt9Z
— Built in Buffalo (@BuiltInBuffalo_) April 17, 2022
The 6-foot-5, 237-pounder is the NFL’s all-time leader in rushing touchdowns by a quarterback (88), and he’s eclipsed 500 yards rushing in all but one of his professional seasons. Allen was also the 2024 NFL MVP. In his acceptance speech, he delivered a line that has become a catchphrase among Bills fans: “Be good. Do good. God bless, and go Bills.”
Through seven games this fall, Allen has thrown for 1,793 yards with 11 touchdowns and five interceptions. He’s added 270 yards and nine TDs on the ground.
In Sunday’s 36-10 drubbing of the Baltimore Ravens, Allen surpassed the franchise record for passing touchdowns set by Bills legend and Hall of Famer Jim Kelly, and he’s nearing Kelly’s franchise record for passing yards. In the postgame press conference, Allen was asked about the feat.
“To break the records, it’s cool but I understand it’s not just me,” he said. “There’s a lot of guys who have put a lot of work into this, that have helped me get to this spot right here, and I don’t take that for granted, to be the quarterback for the Buffalo Bills. … God’s placed me here for a reason, and I’m gonna continue to trust His plan.”
“God placed me here for a reason, and I’m gonna continue to trust his plan.”
Josh Allen on passing Jim Kelly for the most career passing touchdowns in #Bills history. #BillsMafia pic.twitter.com/cFqwBbBIE4
— Ian Mills (@IanMillsTV) November 1, 2026
The acclaim Allen receives for his exploits on the field is often matched by the criticism directed his way for not “winning the big one.” A Super Bowl championship — something Kelly was never able to accomplish — would cement Allen’s legacy as one of the greatest quarterbacks of his generation.
Living with such high expectations is a level of pressure that would crush many people, but Allen has been able to press on in the face of it. It appears he’s turning to God for the strength to endure. At the beginning of the 2025 season, Allen was asked again about the ever-more-glaring missing piece in his growing list of accolades.
“You have to continue to keep giving yourself chances,” he told ESPN. “I feel like one thing that I’ve for sure learned this last offseason is trusting in God’s timing. It’s never wrong, and when it’s meant to happen, it’ll happen, and you just gotta continue to keep putting yourselves in opportunities where it could happen.”
Before this season, Allen was asked in an interview with NFL Network how his thought process around chasing a Super Bowl has shifted in recent years. He admits football glory used to be the most important thing in his life, but getting married, having a daughter, and growing in his faith has changed all that.
“There’s going to be the ups and downs in life,” he said. “I’m a big proponent on, ‘It’ll happen when it happens.’ I’m gonna trust God’s timing when it does. Just gonna keep having fun and playing the game the way that I know how to play it.”
One of the more impactful moments of Allen’s growth in faith was teammate Damar Hamlin‘s terrifying on-field cardiac arrest in January 2023 and subsequent recovery. Hamlin’s initial outlook was incredibly bleak in the hours after his collapse, but he continued to progress rapidly in the days and weeks that followed.
“God is good. He really is,” Allen told CBS Sports after Buffalo’s first game since the incident. “I just urge everybody to keep praying for [Hamlin].”
A few days later, Allen expanded on how God was at work in his heart amid the chaos.
“Kind of a spiritual awakening really for me, and I know for a lot of other people that maybe didn’t have the strongest belief, or wasn’t one of the biggest, strongest Christian followers,” Allen said on “Kyle Brandt’s Basement.” “To see what’s transpired here, it’s a crazy, crazy feeling. It’s something I’ve never felt before.
“… I’ve never been struck like that before from a play, from an experience, from an emotion. It’s never hit me that way before. And look, I’ll be the first to admit, I haven’t been the most devoted Christ-follower in my life, and I’ve had my different beliefs and thoughts and ideas and stuff like that, but something got hold of me there, and it was extremely powerful, [something] that I couldn’t deny.”
Allen said he went to church sometimes as a kid, but had gotten away from the practice as an adult.
“I can’t chalk [the experience with Hamlin] down to anything else but a Higher Power,” he told Kyle Brandt later. “Yeah, I’m extremely moved. I don’t really have the words to explain it.”
Allen has seen the power of God at work in Hamlin’s life, in the lives of his teammates and coaches, and in the lives of millions who followed the heart-wrenching story. Through it, he’s come to recognize that some things are simply more important than winning a Super Bowl, like trusting in God and His timing.
Now, as that truth sinks deeper into his soul by the grace of God, he can pursue a Super Bowl title with open hands rather than succumbing to the crippling pressure. He knows God is in control of all things, not him.
Allen will seek to inch his team a little closer to the Super Bowl in a “Monday Night Football” showdown against one of the NFC’s best teams, the Minnesota Vikings (6-1). Kickoff from Minneapolis is set for 8:15 p.m. ET.
>> Do you know Christ personally? Learn how you can commit your life to Him. <<
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Falcons LB Kendal Daniels seals game with pick a week after leaving on stretcher: ‘Glory to God’
By Kevin Mercer Oct 26, 2026The San Francisco 49ers fell from the dwindling ranks of unbeaten NFL teams on Sunday when they were clipped in Atlanta by the previously 2-4 Falcons, 29-20.
What makes the story even more notable is that Kendal Daniels, the Falcons rookie linebacker who helped seal the win with an interception of Niners QB Brock Purdy late in the fourth quarter, was lying motionless on a stretcher just one week ago.
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With Atlanta leading by six and the 49ers near midfield with just under three minutes to go in the game, Purdy fired a pass over the middle. Daniels rose up, deflected the pass, caught the ball, and scampered 29 yards the other way.
@AtlantaFalcons rookie Kendal Daniels gets his first career interception in the clutch
SFvsATL on FOX/FOX One
Stream on @NFLPlus pic.twitter.com/9BtAUNZQLm— NFL (@NFL) October 25, 2026
Following the interception, Atlanta would tack on a field goal to go ahead by two scores. On the ensuing possession, San Francisco fumbled in Falcons territory and Daniels hopped on the ball. Daniels’ interception was the first of his young NFL career, as was his fumble recovery. The 23-year-old also recorded a team-leading and career-high 11 combined tackles on the day.
All the while, Daniels wore the green dot on his helmet, given to the player receiving communications from the defensive coordinator and responsible for relaying the play calls to his teammates. That’s typically veteran linebacker Divine Deablo’s job, but he was out with an injury, so the tall task went to Daniels. The Falcons defense held San Fransisco, the league’s No. 1 scoring team, to a season-low 20 points.
Daniels — who has started all seven games of his NFL career, including on Sunday — looked no worse for the wear after his frightening injury seven days before.
In last week’s 31-23 loss to the Chicago Bears, Daniels stayed down after making an awkward tackle in the third quarter. As both teams gathered around him, he was loaded on a stretcher, carted off the field, and taken to a nearby hospital. Positive reports began to emerge about Daniels’ condition later in the day, and by the evening he was back with his team.
“That’s remarkable, truly,” Falcons head coach Kevin Stefanski said Sunday in his postgame press conference. “What a great kid. We just gave him a game ball, and he deserves it, because what a week. What a seven days that was. Seven days ago, we’re in here talking about him being at the hospital and talking to his family and all the emotional stuff that he went through.
“And then, oh by the way, go play in a game against (49ers head coach) Kyle Shanahan and Brock Purdy and put the green dot on and call the defense. That’s unbelievable to just do that. And then, to make a play at the end? Man, really proud of that kid.”
In an on-field interview with a Falcons team reporter moments after Sunday’s game, Daniels said he was “blessed to be able to come back a week after a scary fall. Just all thanks, glory to God. He put me back out here, so all the plays I made today was Him.”
Later, he was asked what went into forcing his two game-clinching turnovers.
“God,” he said. “He put me in a position to make the plays.”
Daniels starred for Oklahoma State from 2021-24 before transferring to Oklahoma ahead of the 2025 campaign. Following a season in which he moved from safety to linebacker, Daniels was drafted in the fourth round by the Falcons in April’s NFL Draft.
The Beggs, Oklahoma, native continued to praise God in the locker room after Sunday’s victory.
“I’m blessed, man,” he told the media. “I just thanked God all week. … I was just sore all week, but I’ve played through worse pain than that. So, I knew God was telling me that I needed to play. He guided me to play this week and helped me and guided me to play well for my team.”
Later, Daniels thanked all those who prayed for him.
“The power of prayer is strong,” he said, “and I felt like the Atlanta Falcons fan base really took care of me and prayed for me.”
Daniels writes “Give It To God” with a praying hands emoji in his Instagram bio, and the young father has been known to express his gratitude to God in posts on the social media site.
In a week that Daniels described as “the craziest week of my life,” he saw like never before the protective power of God on full display.
Daniels and the Falcons are now just a half-game out of first place in the NFC South with another divisional matchup up next. They will travel to take on the Tampa Bay Buccaneers (2-5) on Sunday at 1 p.m. ET.
>> Do you know Christ personally? Learn how you can commit your life to Him. <<
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