Detroit Lions coach Dan Campbell said a mistake that cost the team three points at the end of the first half was entirely his fault.
“I totally screwed my team,” Campbell said on FOX’s halftime broadcast. “This is mine, we have to watch the clock, this is not a hurricane call. I made a decision I shouldn’t have made and our team is going to have to deal with it. That’s the bottom line.”
Note: “Hurricane” refers to the rushing of the field goal unit onto the field for a last-second attempt while the clock is running.
The Lions had the ball deep in Tampa Bay Buccaneers territory but ran out of timeouts late in the half. Quarterback Jared Goff found Amon-Ra St. Brown at the Buccaneers 8-yard line with about 11 seconds left to play and the clock running down. At that point, the Lions began to force their field goal team down the field while the offense rushed to line up for a spike.
In the end, the Lions punted the ball with four seconds left, but at least half of the field goal team was still on the field. A penalty was called for too many players, and since part of the violation was that the team had to play 10 seconds after the game had started, halftime was over.
This play was emblematic of Detroit’s problems in the red zone on Sunday. The Lions only managed to reach the end zone once. Seven red zone trips, and scored only any points on four of those trips. Campbell, however, believed the team had improved enough since last week, but coaching ultimately got in the way.
“I asked for improvement from last week – that was the story – and we improved,” Campbell said after the game. “We improved and their coach cost them. Their head coach cost them this week. Critical mistake (at) the end of the half, and 100 percent on me. We improved, there are areas we need to continue to improve, but (the mistake) is not OK.”
With the score at 20-16, those three points at the end of the half would have made a difference. Detroit had several late drives that put them in field goal position, but because they needed to score a touchdown, they were ultimately unable to capitalize.
