“Hindisght is always 20/20. But looking back, it’s still a bit fuzzy.”
That’s a lyric from a Megadeth song with an apt title for the current state of the Detroit Lions: Sweating Bullets. Now 6-4 after a dismal offensive showing against the reigning Super Bowl champion Eagles in Sunday night’s 16-9 loss, Dan Campbell’s Lions are on the wrong side of the playoff divide.
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Campbell himself bears some responsibility for the loss in Philadelphia. The architecture of aggression that has been a hallmark of Detroit’s recent success, Campbell was on the wrong side of the tipping point in Week 11.
Five times the Lions went for it on fourth down. The Eagles shot down all five attempts. From a poorly-conceived fake punt in which linebacker Grant Stuard took a direct snap and ran into the teeth of the Eagles’ base defense still warily on the field, to an end zone pass where quarterback Jared Goff was under immediate pressure and misfired to well-covered WR Amon-Ra St. Brown, who appeared to be the only target Goff could een conceive of throwing to on that particular play, Campbell’s fourth-down decisions had everyone second-guessing. Many were first-guessing the lamentable choices.
After the game, Campbell expressed no remorse or regret about the failures.
“If you go totally conservative in the way this game played out and the way it was, you got a better chance of winning that game than some of those decisions I made,” Campbell stated during his postgame press conference. “I understand that, but also that’s who we are. It’s who I am, and it bit us today.”
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Given the passage of a little time, Campbell’s view of the choices didn’t really change with hindsight. In his weekly spot with 97.1 The Ticket on Tuesday, Campbell softened the tone but stood firm on making what he felt was the right play on Sunday, even if the endgame result cost his team a win.
“I come out of those games and I think about everything and I look at everything,” Campbell said on Tuesday. “I try not to play the hindsight game. I know this ― no matter what we do, how we go here, just like we’ve done going on Year 5 now, we’re going to play to the strength of our team, however that goes. And you learn, you evolve as you go. As the season goes, you figure out who you are and truly what your strengths are, and you adapt and you adjust. Every game you have to adjust. And the opponent is different every week.”
This week’s opponent, the New York Giants, sits dead last in the NFC standings at 2-9. It presents Campbell and the Lions a chance to sharpen the axe but also show the opponent-specific adjustments. Despite their lousy record, New York’s defensive front remains one of the NFL’s best. It directly matches up against the current Lions’ biggest weakness, a banged-up offensive line that can’t handle aggressive fronts.
Anxiety’s attacking me, my air is getting thin
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Time will tell if Campbell changes his hyper-aggressive approach. It’s difficult to ignore all the successes, all the national praise for Campbell effectively changing the NFL’s script for handling fourth downs. There’s a balance to be found. Here’s hoping the Lions find it before the countdown to playoff extinction kicks in.
Absolutely nothing beats trust
Or, to quote Campbell’s favorite band, Metallica: Nothing Else Matters.
This article originally appeared on Lions Wire: Dan Campbell not sweating bullets over Lions 4th-down failures
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