DETROIT – Dan Campbell spoke Monday after the Detroit Lions' devastating playoff loss to the Commanders, touching on the team’s Super Bowl window, the possible loss of both coordinators, costly play calls, and what caused the loss.
READ: Trying to make sense of a devastating, sudden end to the Lions' dream season
Here are the takeaways from his press conference:
‘We failed’
Campbell didn’t mince words when he talked about the Lions coming up short of their ultimate goal of winning the Super Bowl.
“That was tough,” Campbell said. “That was tough the other day and a tough pill to swallow. When you have goals and you have standards for yourself, and I mean that for us as a team, collectively, and you fail to reach those, man, it hurts.”
Lions players and coaches were open about their expectations from the very first day of training camp, saying that anything short of a Super Bowl win wouldn’t be good enough.
“Ultimately, we failed,” Campbell said. “We failed in that game, you know? We had a hell of a season and we overcame a lot of adversity, a ton of guys that we needed to rely on and did and got us in that position -- we got to where we wanted to get to, and then we did not perform.”
Campbell gave credit to the Commanders and how they played Saturday. But he also wanted to focus on what the Lions could have done better.
“For us, when you feel like, ‘Hey you’ve got to bring your A game' -- I think if we bring our B game, we’ve got a chance to win that game,” Campbell said. “We didn’t bring that, so that’s just a little bit of the frustration. I know everybody’s frustrated. I know the fans are, certainly our team, coaches, everybody in the organization.
“That being said, I’m real proud of these guys. I am, because I know they fight they’ve got in them, and I know what they’re made of, and the amount of things that they’ve overcome speaks volumes.
“So, as I said, in the loss, everybody’s got a hand in that. Everybody’s got a hand, including me. So we definitely did that together. We earned that loss together.
“But listen, all we can do is move forward. Brush yourself off. I’ve already gone through the loss-of-a-family-member feeling, to anger yesterday, to now I’m back on my feet ready to roll. I’ve acknowledged -- I can look in the mirror and say, ‘You know what? You failed, man. What are you going to do about it?’ So that’s where we’re at. Move forward.”
Super Bowl window still open?
As disappointed as Campbell is by the divisional round exit this year, he still believes the Lions' Super Bowl window is open.
“Yeah, I do,” Campbell said. “I do. You talk about that core -- that core group is still intact, and some of these guys are now -- we’ve signed some back, some are up on contracts, and that’ll be ongoing.”
That core includes players like Penei Sewell, Amon-Ra St. Brown, Alim McNeill, Aidan Hutchinson, and Jahmyr Gibbs. All of those players will be in Detroit for at least two more seasons.
So the Lions should be a Super Bowl contender for at least a few more years.
“I think the most important thing is you want to know you’ve got your culture, you’ve got your identity, and you’ve got players that fit into that,” Campbell said. “And we’ve got that. We’ve got players at every pivotal position you could ask for to have success, and those guys are made the right way.
“So absolutely that window is open.”
Campbell ‘expects’ to lose both coordinators
Now that the season is over, attention turns to the future of offensive coordinator Ben Johnson and defensive coordinator Aaron Glenn.
Both coordinators are among the hottest head coaching candidates in the league, and Campbell thinks both will get that opportunity.
“I would expect to lose both, but I haven’t been told anything,” Campbell said. “I’ve just got a feeling, but I’m prepared to lose both.”
He talked openly about how losing his coordinators could force the Lions to tweak their mentality and the way they do things. But it can’t derail the culture that’s been built within the organization.
“Is it a loss? Absolutely it would be a loss,” Campbell said. “But yet, we move forward. This train rolls on and I’ll find the next-best guys for us.”
He also took questions about replacing those coordinators, which further shows how likely the Lions are to lose them.
“The easy thing to say is you want the best candidate,” Campbell said. “That’s one way to say it. But that’s also like saying, ‘Give me the best player.’ Give me the right player. Give me the right coach. Give me the right coordinator. That’s really what I’m looking for.”
He said he’s not going to rush through the hiring process, if it comes to that. He’s going to do right by his team.
The play that turned the tide
The Lions made a ton of uncharacteristic mistakes on Saturday, but Campbell pointed to one specific moment that turned the tide in Washington’s favor.
“Two weeks ago, Washington plays Tampa Bay, and Tampa’s beginning to try to take control of that game,” Campbell said. “They’re up four points, and they fumbled in backed-up territory and Washington gets it. That really was -- you have an ability to go up two scores, and all of a sudden: whoa, you’re down.
“That kind of happened to us on the first turnover. We have the chance to go up 14-3 potentially, and we fumble that ball, they go all the way down -- it just kind of, it begins to change the narrative of where you’re going.
“Then they get some long drives -- that one in the third quarter, 8 and a half minutes, 15 plays, and now all of a sudden you look up and you’re down two scores.”
More carries for Jahmyr Gibbs?
One widespread critique of the Lions' game plan was that Gibbs should have gotten more touches.
Gibbs was incredible on Saturday, rushing for 105 yards and two scores on 14 carries and catching six passes for an additional 70 yards.
Campbell was asked about that usage.
“Yeah, I mean, you always want to get him more carries,” Campbell said. “You come out of a game like that and he’s had the carries he has, but we were pretty balanced. We were pretty balanced when you take away the, ‘Now we’re in got-to-go mode.' Those were 20 of the reps or something, so you take that out, you’re left with 40 reps and you’re balanced.
“It was really -- we were having success no matter what we did, we felt like. We could run it, we could throw it, explosives, and then we turned the ball over. So the turnovers created the issue. All of a sudden you’re down a couple of scores and now you’re out of what you really feel like you can do.
“So you really want to dissect it into more than what it is. Here’s what it is: We turned the ball over. Then we get behind, and then we turn the ball over, and we get behind, and so it just, we couldn’t overcome it.”
3rd and 1 play call
Probably the most widely criticized was the decision to pass on third and 1 from the red zone in the first quarter.
The Lions were up 7-3 and marched down to Washington’s 17-yard line. But instead of picking up the first down on the ground, the Lions tried to pass.
It’s the play Campbell talked about previously. Goff was sacked and fumbled the ball, and the Commanders scored 11 plays later. Instead of a 14-3 lead for the Lions, they were down 10-7.
Here’s what Campbell said about that play call:
“We were ready to go for it on fourth (down), so we’d run it on fourth if it didn’t take place,” Campbell said. “We just liked the matchup of St. Brown on (Commanders linebacker Bobby) Wagner. It’s a play we’ve run, I don’t know, 50 times this year, and it just didn’t work out.
“It was the perfect storm. It was just a little bit of a slip. Goff has to choke the ball, then he moves up, we get beat in protection on a three-step -- not a seven-step, it was three-step, so it happened fast. Then, bop-bop, disaster.
“So, I’m with you. I don’t worry about it. I’m not second-guessing that, and if we were going to do it all over again, I’d do the same thing, so I don’t know. That’s a hard pill to swallow, but it just didn’t work out for us.”
‘Bizarre, freakish year’ of defensive injuries
Campbell has never and will never let injuries be an excuse, but he did admit that the Lions had a “bizarre, freakish year” of attrition on the defensive side of the ball.
When they took the field Saturday against the Commanders, the Lions were without three-quarters of their starting defensive line from the start of the season: Hutchinson, McNeill, and Marcus Davenport.
Two key members of the linebacker rotation were out in Malcolm Rodriguez and Derrick Barnes, and the Lions also played extended time without Alex Anzalone and Jalen Reeves-Maybin.
Amik Robertson got hurt on the second defensive play of the game, leaving the Lions without him, Carlton Davis, or Emmanuel Moseley in the secondary. Ifeatu Melifonwu and Brian Branch also got banged up in the game.
Lions fans should be thankful that their head coach doesn’t let injuries become an excuse, but we can still acknowledge that the Lions had unusually bad luck on that front this season.
‘Failure only makes you stronger’
“When you have the right guys and you’re made the right way, failure only makes you stronger,” Campbell said. “You come back better. I believe that, and unfortunately, I’ve had a ton of those.
“I think it makes you -- God, it makes you hungry.”
Campbell said sometimes it can be harder to reload and stay hungry after a successful season. So while he isn’t thankful that the Lions lost their first playoff game of the year, he believes it will act as motivation.
“With where we’re at, we had these goals, we fell short,” Campbell said. “We met two of those goals this year, and in a sense went above and beyond where we were a year ago, and yet, we didn’t get any further. And, man, that’s disappointing. But it also eats at me. That drives me. It motivates me.
“I got a text from St. Brown at 4 in the morning after that game, so I know the guys it eats away at, and they’re the right guys. There our guys for a reason. That’s what will always give me hope and let me know we’re only going to be better. We’re going to come back stronger. We’re going to learn from this, and it’s just more fuel on the fire.”
‘Don’t forget it'
Much like last year’s NFC Championship Game loss in San Francisco was a motivating factor for this year’s team, Campbell wants his players to remember how Saturday felt.
“I told the team: Just don’t forget it,” Campbell said. “Don’t forget it. Look across the field at the end of that game. Somebody feels good and somebody doesn’t, and just remember that feeling -- no different than last year. That’s all.
“Those are the things that you etch in your mind that you don’t ever want to forget. I’m the type of person that replays every bad decision, every bad move in my head over and over on purpose just to let it burn and eat away at you, because that’s the stuff that makes you not want to feel that anymore, is to go back for more.
“So, we fell short. It wasn’t good enough. The players are extremely disappointed. I know the fans are. I certainly am. But we will reload and we will be back.”
You can watch Campbell’s full briefing here:
