ALLEN PARK >> Cameron Davis was in a dark place mentally. He was desperate, pissed off. His body had betrayed him, ended his football career, stole his identity.

He was in the throes of grieving this loss 12 years ago when a group of people walked into the restaurant he worked at, a since-closed soul food restaurant in Uptown Oakland called Picán. It was 10 minutes before the end of lunch service. His state of mind had him wanting to do something out of character.

“I kind of didn’t want to give them a table,” Davis admitted.

But he kept his cool and did his job. In doing so, he set off a chain reaction that has profoundly impacted the 2024 Detroit Lions and their ability to maintain Super Bowl aspirations despite a litany of injuries in the unit he works with as the Lions’ assistant defensive line coach.

The story of Davis ends with him unleashing his passion on the game taken from him. And in tandem with his longtime mentor, Lions defensive line coach Terrell Williams, he has the chance to help electrify the city with its first pro football championship in 67 years.

But the road to Detroit began after Davis’ life changed forever more than a decade ago when a young man he’d played high school football with died of a heart attack at 19 years old. The two weren’t particularly close, but they’d played in all-star games together, and his sudden passing left Davis a bit stunned, even more so after Davis read some of the details about his passing and realized he’d also experienced symptoms of cardiac arrhythmia.

Davis, who was playing junior college (JUCO) football at Pasadena City College at the time, experienced a major heart palpation while driving home from a nannying gig not long after. His girlfriend at the time (now wife), BriAnna, suggested he get checked. Sure enough, he was diagnosed with a condition that ended his own playing career.

One week later, Oakland Raiders CEO Amy Trask walked into Picán at 1:50 p.m. and Davis gave her party the table. It turned out to be one of the best decisions he’s ever made. He quickly learned of Trask’s job and asked her for an internship. He doesn’t remember how it came up, but Trask found out Davis was neighbors with Dan Dibley, a sports talk radio host in the Bay Area. She put Davis’ fate in Dibley’s hands.

“She calls him, literally on the spot, like, ‘Hey, should I trust this guy to do an internship?’” Davis recalled. “And he’s like, ‘Absolutely. Like, he’s babysat my kids. … He’s a trustworthy guy.’ And that’s how I got my internship with the Raiders.”

The gig entailed working with the equipment staff during the week and assisting with public relations duties on gamedays during the 2012 season. Davis didn’t have dreams of being a coach. He wanted to work for the team he grew up rooting for. But his internship had perks that led him right into another profession.

The Raiders had a lot of extra cleats lying around, and he put them to good use by donating them to his former coach, Vince Bordelon, who was coaching at Diablo Valley College (DVC), a JUCO program. With their frequent contact, Bordelon pestered Davis about getting into coaching. He resisted until BriAnna finally swayed him.

“I went out there not expecting to like it,” Davis said. “And then from then on, it was all I wanted to do.”

Another turning point

Though Davis instantly had big dreams, he had no idea how to act on them. In spring 2013, he was volunteering at DVC, pursuing a sociology degree at California State East Bay, and stocking shelves at Old Navy when lightning struck a second time. He never worked weekends at Old Navy, but the shop was short-staffed on Memorial Day weekend, and he had to go in.

“I go to work, I’m taking my 15-minute break, I’m on the phone with my wife, and I’m like, ‘Oh, s—. That’s Terrell Williams, the D-line coach for the Oakland Raiders,’” Davis said. Williams was at the mall to see a movie with his family. Davis didn’t want to bother him, but fortunately, BriAnna gave him the push he needed again.

“I definitely wouldn’t be here without my wife,” Davis said. “She has literally been with me every step of the way.”

Over the next 30 minutes, Williams laid it all out for him. From what a grad assistant role is, to quality control, to position coaching. They exchanged numbers and Williams gave Davis a list of about 20 coaches to contact, and Davis followed through on all of them.

“From that moment, Terrell Williams has been a part of my life forever,” Davis said.

Williams, once a “bold” up-and-comer himself, did the same thing early in his career with veteran D-line coach Bob Karmelowicz, who passed away after one season with the Lions in 2010. But Williams never forgot the time that Karmelowicz gave him, and has since made an effort to pay it forward.

Williams kept in touch with Davis after their chance encounter, talking every couple of weeks over the next decade before Williams took over the room in Detroit this past offseason.

“My goal always is to help guys that I think are hard workers like Cam and care about the game and love their players and all those things, the things that I see in myself,” Williams said. “I see Cam as one of those guys, an up-and-comer in this profession.”

Davis took assistant D-line roles at DVC, the University of La Verne (also serving as equipment manager at the time) — where he got his master’s degree in leadership and management — along with Texas A&M, Rice and Kentucky (grad assistant) before finally getting his first shot as the head D-line coach at Lamar University.

After nine years in coaching, he got a call from head coach Dan Campbell and the Detroit Lions on a recommendation from Williams — the same way he’d gotten most, “if not all” of his coaching jobs to that point, Davis said. Now, the two are working together, a dream come true for the apprentice.

“Terrell is a special human being, bro,” Davis said. “When he comes into the room, he makes that room better. He’s got a great personality. He’s a great leader. He’s a great man. He’s a great human. His ability to tap in with people and understand — not just the football X’s and O’s — but like, people. It’s hard to find people better.”

‘Student of the game’

When a new player is added to the Lions’ roster, it’s Davis’ job to get him up to speed so they can see the field as soon as possible.

The first thing Davis does is reach out to the player’s former coaches to gain insight on how that player learns, so he can “help him retain that information” quickly. He’s always learning from his own players, asking them who their favorite coaches are and what they liked about them to see what he can apply to his own instruction.

No two players on the Lions’ D-line are coached the same way. They have different skill sets, body types, emotions and motivations. According to Williams, “A great coach also has to be a great listener and a great learner. You can’t teach if you’re not willing to learn.”

The second thing Davis does to onboard a player is to make the room’s expectations unequivocally clear.

“Put your hands on somebody and be physical,” said Myles Adams, who signed to the Lions’ defensive line from the Seattle Seahawks practice squad on Nov. 30. “I take it as the Detroit style of thinking, the Detroit way of playing.”

The Lions parted ways with first-year defensive line coach John Scott last offseason and brought in Williams, who spent six years with the Tennessee Titans but found himself without work when Tennessee made the surprising decision to move on from former head coach Mike Vrabel. Since Williams’ hiring, Campbell has repeatedly referred to him as the best D-line coach in the league.

“Guys that we brought in or young players that we’ve had on the practice squad, guys that have been on the roster that haven’t had the opportunity, and so that’s where they’ve done a great job,” Campbell said. “Terrell, I’ve known Terrell a long time and I just think that he’s an absolutely excellent coach, and Cam continues to grow as a coach as well, and they work well together. I think they give our guys the best opportunity to have success.”

Over the summer, the pads were popping. A shift in intensity from Detroit’s defensive front was noticeable from the jump.

“If I’m being honest, I think a lot of it is the new coach we got,” Aidan Hutchinson said of Williams in July. “Everything we do, we just pull the trigger.”

Hutchinson, John Cominsky, David Bada, Nate Lynn, Marcus Davenport, Kyle Peko, Mekhi Wingo, Alim McNeill: All of them are done playing football until 2025, forced to serve as mere bystanders as the team they were supposed to lift to a Super Bowl is trekking on without them. And that’s only on the defensive line.

Despite the attrition, the Lions rank fourth this season in rushing yards allowed per game (98.5) and limited Chicago Bears running back D’Andre Swift to 20 yards on nine carries this past Sunday, the first game since McNeill was added to Detroit’s ever-growing injury ward.

“That’s the job, man,” Williams said. “You’re trying to mesh all of these personalities together, and just when you think you got it, then bam, another guy has to show up because of injury. … That’s the business. That’s what our jobs are, and the good coaches are able to manage it, and then some coaches can’t.”

When it comes to rushing the passer, the Lions’ crop of newbies, along with Levi Onwuzurike, Josh Paschal and DJ Reader (all of whom have missed time themselves in recent weeks), are continuing to jell. Edge rusher Za’Darius Smith, who was added from the Cleveland Browns at the trade deadline, has three sacks in five games and is tied for fifth in pressures (14) league-wide since making his debut in Week 11.

“There’ll be times in the middle of the night where (Davis) will text me some stuff to help me with my pass rush,” said Smith, who’s the same age as Davis, 32.

“And that’s what I love about it, man. He’s really a student of the game.”

‘Top-tier comedy’

The age gap between Williams, 50, and Davis is significant, but if you closed your eyes during a defensive line meeting at the Lions’ facility, you’d think their ages were reversed.

“T is more of a joker, trying to make you laugh,” Smith said. “Cam is more of the serious guy.” Being an “old head” is a title Davis wears proudly. Paschal, who also played for Davis at Kentucky, called their relationship “top-tier comedy.”

“The dynamic is hilarious … they’re always clowning on each other,” Onwuzurike said.

When posing for a photo together last Friday, Williams immediately made it known that Davis got a haircut for the occasion — a glimpse into the constant ribbing that goes on behind closed doors. “Just so we’re clear, I get my hair cut every Thursday night,” Davis said.

Their daily back-and-forth brings a lighthearted presence to a room that’s under a whole lot of stress to uphold its end of the bargain with playoffs quickly approaching. Pat O’Connor said the duo bestows an “uplifting” experience, an environment where “you enjoy coming to work.”

It also is reflective of their equal partnership. Davis called Williams “the least egotistical guy I’ve ever met in my life.” With Williams, Davis is afforded opportunities few other assistant coaches have. “(I’ve) been in a lot of rooms where the head D-line coach is the head D-line coach,” Smith, a 10-year vet, said. “T don’t act like that. T gives Cam an opportunity to coach, too.”

Working for someone you admire can be taxing, not only because you want to make them proud. Davis has put a lot of pressure on himself to do right by his mentor, saying he’d work 20-hour days to avoid letting Williams down. But as Williams has done with his players, he’s alleviated some of that strain with words of wisdom.

“It’s better for Cam to be himself,” Williams said. “I know early on it was, ‘OK, he sees me on this pedestal,’ and it’s like, ‘Man, I’m just like you. I’m trying to figure it out every day.’ And now he understands that, I think he feels more comfortable.”

They have a collective goal: Help the Detroit Lions win a Super Bowl. Everything else is irrelevant. But to get the performance needed from their players, Williams and Davis have to first forge meaningful connections with a rotating cast of characters.

One of the ways they do this is by putting the person before the player, by emphasizing personal growth in addition to professional. In this room, they learn as many life lessons as they do game plans. “Growing as a man makes you better at everything,” Paschal said.

This treatment includes the players who aren’t currently suiting up on Sundays.

“Since I got the injury, it’s been a number of check-ins from Cam and coach T, just to see how I’m doing mentally, how the family’s doing on a personal level,” said Peko, who went out for the season due to a torn pec in Week 6. “It’s special. They care about us as people and not just ballplayers.”

The chips have been down in Detroit’s defensive line for more than 10 weeks now. But inside their meeting room, which apparently doubles as a comedy club for the two coaches, you’d never know it. Players such as O’Connor, Adams and Al-Quadin Muhammad, who have fought and clawed their entire NFL careers to have an opportunity like this on a contending team, are making the most of it. O’Connor had four pressures against Chicago and Muhammad had a late sack to help put the game — a franchise-record 13th win — away.

A quote from Campbell has shaped Davis’ mindset during the turbulent season: “When s— is at its worst, you have to be at your best. That’s what being a man is.” Despite what it might look like from the outside, this has all been the thrill of a lifetime for the young man who boldly approached his professional hero outside an Old Navy 11 years ago.

There is no “woe is me.” They have not thrown their hands up at negative reality; it’s not an option in this league, and especially not on this team. With the Lions 13-2 and on the verge of capturing the NFC’s No. 1 seed, it might just be enough to make all of their wildest dreams come true — to make lightning strike for a city in drought.

“When we line up on Sunday, (the other team) is going to try to kick our ass. That’s just the facts of the matter, so let’s go. Nobody feels sorry for you. Let’s go,” Davis said. “Living in Detroit … that’s who this city is. You gotta wake up. You gotta punch the clock. You gotta go to work.”