Detroit Lions head coach Dan Campbell has admitted that he made a crucial mistake at the end of Sunday’s NFC Championship Game against the San Francisco 49ers.
Campbell, who has attracted lots of criticism for his decision to go for it on two fourth-down plays instead of attempting field goals, has stuck to his guns on that front. But he knows he shouldn’t have run the ball on third-and-goal at the end of the contest.
The Lions needed to save all three of their timeouts for the Niners’ possession on the drive but had to burn one of them after getting stopped at the goal line on third down. Campbell conceded having gotten that one wrong on the back of the loss.
“Yeah, look the easy thing to do is to throw it,” he said, per MLive.com. “Probably should’ve been the right thing, but for me, I wanted to run it. I thought we would just pop it. We had just (run the 2-minute offense) all the way down the field, throwing the football, and they were in a four-down front and I believed we’d walk right in. And we just missed a block. So then, yeah, I’ve got to use a timeout.
“So, hindsight, throw it four times. But I believed in that moment it was going to be a walk-and-run, and it didn’t work out. So, I gambled and lost.”
Had the Lions saved all three of their timeouts, they would have been able to kick to their opponents and get three stops instead of going for an onside kick. The burnt timeout meant San Francisco got to run the clock down after recovering the kick.
Kyle Shanahan’s side will play the Kansas City Chiefs in the Super Bowl on February 11.
