DETROIT – Dan Campbell talked about the most criticized play call of the Detroit Lions' playoff loss to the Commanders on Monday.
Lions fans know exactly which play I’m referencing. Campbell even agreed that it was the turning point in Saturday’s game.
The Lions had a 7-3 lead late in the first quarter and were at Washington’s 17-yard line with a chance to go up by two scores.
The offense was humming -- six plays and 71 yards for a touchdown on the previous possession and five plays to go 56 yards on that drive.
Then, on third and 1, the Lions dialed up a pass play instead of handing the ball off to David Montgomery or Jahmyr Gibbs.
“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.”
Goff got sacked and fumbled the ball. Washington recovered and marched 78 yards in 11 plays to take the lead five minutes later.
Instead of a dominant 14-3 lead, the Lions found themselves in a back-and-forth battle with a team that had nothing to lose. And that proved fatal.
“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.”
With hindsight, it’s easy to say the Lions should have just handed the ball off and gotten the first down. But that type of aggressive play calling has helped make this the most dangerous offense in the NFL all season.
Like Campbell said, it was the perfect storm, at the worst possible time.
You can watch Campbell’s full briefing here:
