The Dan Campbell Trust Index is here and it tells you everything about how this staff evaluates rookies
Every offseason, Lions fans do the same thing. They talk themselves into every draft pick playing immediately. Sometimes it’s justified. Sometimes it’s just camp brain taking over and making everyone lose their damn minds over a seventh-round flier who runs a 4.4.
So instead of guessing which rookies Dan Campbell will trust this year, someone actually went back and studied every single Lions draft pick since Campbell arrived in Allen Park and built a scoring system to measure trust. Not talent. Not ceiling. Trust.
It’s called the Dan Campbell Trust Index, and it’s split into two parts: initial trust and earned trust.
How it works
Initial trust measures everything before the season starts. Was the rookie active Week 1? Did he start? How many snaps did he get early? Was he working with the starters in training camp? That tells you how much confidence the staff had from day one.
Earned trust is what happened once the games started. Did his role grow? Did he become a starter midseason? Did Campbell lean on him in big moments? That’s the part where a player proves he deserves more.
Combine those two scores and you get a number out of 100. Anything between 90 and 100 means the coaching staff viewed that rookie as an immediate foundation piece. Between 75 and 89 is a trusted contributor. Between 60 and 74 means he had to earn his way into a significant role. Between 40 and 59, that’s your developmental player still working to gain trust. Anything below 40 is a redshirt rookie who just didn’t have the opportunity.
This is not a talent ranking. Some great players started with low trust scores and climbed later. Amon-Ra St. Brown is the perfect example.
What the past five draft classes tell us
Penei Sewell scored a 97 in 2021. He was an immediate starter and played essentially every offensive snap as a rookie. No hesitation. No easing him in. Just trust from day one.
Aidan Hutchinson scored a perfect 100 in 2022. The highest score of any Lions rookie in the Campbell era. Premium pick, immediate starter, every-down defensive role. That’s what a 100 looks like.
Sam LaPorta also scored 100 in 2023. He and Jared Goff formed an instant bond all the way back to OTAs. LaPorta was a starter from the jump and put up a record-setting rookie tight end season. Immediate foundation piece.
Brian Branch scored a 98 in 2023. Trusted instantly in the nickel and safety role, including critical spots. Another guy the staff knew they could lean on from day one.
Tate Ratledge scored a 93 in 2025. Campbell said during a press conference over the summer that he believed the team had found a real NFL right guard. Ratledge started all 17 games as a rookie and kept earning trust as the season went on.
Now here’s the other side. St. Brown had an initial trust score of 18 in 2021. He was basically nowhere to be found for the better part of the year. Then the Lions won that game against the Minnesota Vikings, and that was his breakout. From there, his snap count skyrocketed, pushing his earned trust to 47. He didn’t arrive as a full-time piece. He forced his way into it.
Kerby Joseph had an initial trust score of 16 in 2022. He wasn’t a Week 1 answer, but he became a starter and a real defensive piece later in the season. His earned trust jumped to 42.
Malcolm Rodriguez is the exact point of reference for any Day 3 pick. A sixth-round linebacker who was the story of Hard Knocks in 2022. He scored an 83 overall trust score because he started immediately and played meaningful defensive snaps. Just because you’re a late-round selection does not mean you can’t win a job.
Training camp is next
Now we head into training camp armed with this knowledge. Keep an eye on who’s repping with the starters, who Campbell is talking about, who he says great things about, who gets heavy preseason snaps, and who starts Week 1.
The good thing is that just because a rookie doesn’t earn that trust at camp doesn’t mean he can’t earn it during the season. St. Brown and Kerby Joseph are proof. And just because certain situations cause a player’s role to shrink, that doesn’t mean he can’t earn it back later.
When the season ends, we’ll come back and assign the 2026 class their trust scores and see where it goes from there.
This is exactly what I needed to see heading into camp. The Trust Index makes so much sense because it’s not about hype or potential, it’s about what Campbell actually does with these guys. The fact that we can point to guys like Hutchinson and LaPorta as perfect examples of immediate day one trust tells me Campbell knows talent when he sees it.
I get what this is trying to do, but I’ve seen too much over the years to just assume every high draft pick is gonna be an Aidan Hutchinson. The St. Brown example is cool and all, but those guys are outliers. I hope the staff nails this draft class, but I’m keeping my expectations in check until I see them actually perform in games.
You know what I love about this? Campbell doesn’t waste time with guys he doesn’t trust. That’s different from the way things used to be around here where you’d get these boneheaded decisions about playing time. This new regime actually watches tape and makes smart calls about who’s ready and who isn’t. That’s real football management.
So basically what I’m getting is keep your eyes open during camp because that’s where you’ll see who Campbell actually believes in. The preseason snaps and starter reps don’t lie, and neither do his press conferences. This system actually gives us a real way to evaluate things instead of just guessing like we always do.