Dan Campbell Comes Under Fire Following Lions Loss

The Detroit Lions blew a 17-point lead and lost to the San Francisco 49ers, prompting criticism of head coach Dan Campbell's decisions.

Transcript

00:00 Dan Campbell said this may have been our only shot and as a famous person from Detroit said,

00:04 you only get one chance to blow, right? And maybe Dan Campbell blew it, Dakota,

00:09 because he's getting criticized for going for it in some of those fourth down situations.

00:13 And overall, I like the philosophy. I like the aggressive philosophy, I do.

00:18 But I've seen way too many people say, well, this has been his philosophy all year,

00:21 you don't change now, as if each decision is a monolith, as if each decision is not its own

00:28 individual decision. And that's where my problem comes from. Not his overall aggressive philosophy,

00:33 I'm down. I usually say go for it on fourth down. But in the two instances here, and one,

00:38 it's a little unfair because the receiver dropped the ball. But nonetheless, in the two instances

00:42 here that he's really being criticized for, one, the field goal would have put you up 17,

00:47 which means you're up three possessions, three scores, which is a big difference than being up

00:51 two scores. So if the field goal didn't put you up three scores, yeah, go for it. But because it did

00:56 put you up three scores, I would have gone for it. The second one, I mean, I would have kicked

00:59 the field goal. The second one, he would have tied the game. And instead of tying the game,

01:04 they're down. And they wind up losing versus the 49ers having to go score in order to take

01:10 the lead back. And that's where I think the criticism of Campbell is fair.

01:13 I think the criticism of Dan Campbell is more than valid. I think you have to do what the game

01:21 calls for, like reading, all right, what's happening in the game. But what it's worth,

01:28 you clearly have some awareness of it because before halftime, you were tempted to go for it

01:33 on fourth down and potentially not gotten it. And then only would have been up two scores with

01:38 Sanfran getting the ball first coming out of half. And you'd be like, all right, they scored. It's

01:42 now a seven-point game. That was good awareness to say, all right, let me just kick a field goal

01:45 here. It's a three-score game. His situational awareness, we talked about it probably like a

01:53 month or so ago. I said this is what scares me about them is because I love the aggression. I

01:58 love that aggressive nature, but you have to do what the game calls for. Sanfran had all the

02:04 momentum. The first four down, I didn't love it, but I get it. The second one, bro, they have all

02:11 the momentum. Make it a three-point game and have them have to go down the field and score again,

02:16 because if you don't get it, you already know they're probably going to go down the field

02:21 because they had just scored a touchdown in the back to back drives lane. I just feel like the

02:25 situational awareness wasn't there. And then the same criticism I had about Buffalo and Baltimore,

02:30 you have to know what the game calls for when the game is calling for it. And he had the opportunity

02:37 and he blew it. He blew it. Well, again, he could have made it three scores with the first one. And

02:42 the second one, regardless of what San Francisco does, then you're only down one score if they go

02:47 down. Instead of when you didn't convert it at that point, they put points on the board and the

02:52 game is over. Yeah. Yeah. No, it's a shame because I really wanted that for Detroit. And when they

02:59 were up 17, I was like, they need to go up at least 21, 24 before I would get to the point

03:05 where I'm comfortable. But you just got to do what the game is calling for, especially you knew at

03:12 some point they were going to find their stride offensively. And once they did, it was over.

03:16 And for that, but not going for it for the second one, for not taking a field goal the second time,

03:22 that was the one I really was a killer. I'm like, bro, go up three, make them have to drop the

03:25 field. Don't give them the opportunity to now just essentially have like a 10 point swing.

03:31 It sucks. It sucks.