VIDEO: Lions RB coach Scottie Montgomery delivers jaw-dropping coaching moment

This video of Lions RB coach/assistant HC Scottie Montgomery addressing the entire team will give you chills.

On the night before the 2024 NFL Draft, the Detroit Lions dropped the latest episode of their award-winning docuseries “Inside the Den.” The video series offers a unique, behind-the-scenes look at how the Lions operate, and this episode—which runs one hour and 42 minutes— was focused on the entirety of the team’s incredible 2023 run.

The video is absolutely worth your watch, but I wanted to highlight a part of the show that literally caused my jaw to drop.

In the aftermath of the team’s disappointing loss to the Chicago Bears in Week 14, Lions running back/assistant head coach Scottie Montgomery addressed the entire team with an emotional and personal story. The speech starts at the 48-minute mark below. I highly suggest watching it before reading beyond this point.

The speech begins with a photo of a burgundy 1984 Ford Mercury. Montgomery goes on to explain that this was his family’s first-ever car, and it’s the one his father had to pull over when Montgomery was just eight years old. Why? Because he was in the midst of a heart attack.

But in a story of perseverance, courage, and strength, Montgomery explained how his father knew if there was any chance of survival, he had to drive the car back home so he could be driven to the hospital the rest of the way.

“You know why he toughed it out?” Montgomery rhetorically asks the room. “He told me later that he didn’t want to see his son see him die in a situation where he knew he could’ve gotten home. Pure [censored] toughness.”

Then Montgomery connected the story to toughness on the field.

“You don’t know how tough you are until tough is all you have. The reason why I came to Detroit was Dan, Coach Campbell. Because he built the program around grit and toughness and it directly connected to the city that’s built around girt and toughness. All you got to hear over the past few days is how shitty you are. All the city has heard over the last 30 or 40 years is how shitty they are. We don’t give a damn. Doesn’t matter. My daddy pulled over to the side of the road, it didn’t matter. The only thing he knew is that he had a job to do to get my ass home and that toughness is all that he had.

“So let me say this: if toughness is connected to this city, it’s connected to your head coach, it’s connected to this team, who gives a shit about what happened (last week)? Can we move on and create the type of team and create the type of toughness that it takes to go fucking hoist that Lombardi (Trophy)?”

While the Lions did not end up hoisting the Lombardi, they did win three of their next four regular season games, win two playoff games for the first time in the Super Bowl era, and come pretty darn close to making their first-ever Super Bowl.