Opinion: Forget another Detroit Lions loss. Coach Dan Campbell is losing benefit of the doubt.
At some point this has to stop, right? Not the losing — though that would be nice, too — but the mental mistakes and questionable decisions and oddly conservative play-calling on third-and-forever.
You know, when Detroit Lions head coach Dan Campbell calls a run up the middle on second-and-long and second-and-long and third-and-longer. But then that’s not the half of it. We’ve seen this lately, most recently a week ago in Cleveland, and the week before that in Pittsburgh.
On some level it’s understandable, the Lions can’t throw and why bother anyway?
It’s just odd that this same coach kept plunging forward early in the season, going for it on fourth down and calling fake punts and fake field goals and even onside kicks. That was fun, at least. And while you might have quibbled with his aggressiveness, he was trying to find an edge with an undermanned team.
And yet, forget about the philosophy of turtling on plays where a pass completion is unlikely. For as frustrating as that’s been and was again Thursday in a bitter — but hardly surprising — 16-14 loss to the Chicago Bears, it’s not the story.
It can’t be. Not after Campbell called consecutive timeouts and cost his defense 5 yards when it still had a chance to force a field goal with enough time to score. That the Lions probably wouldn’t have completed a late comeback is beside the point.
Mistakes are one thing, but millions of dollars not to know the rulebook? That back-to-back timeouts are 5-yard penalties?
Five yards the Bears happily accepted after facing a third-and-9 inside the red zone with a couple of minutes left and trailing by a point. A penalty that gave Andy Dalton, the Bears’ backup quarterback, a much easier pickup, which is what he did when he found Damiere Byrd on a 4-yard slant — or exactly the yardage needed for a first down.
Imagine that?
From there, it helped that Campbell wasted two timeouts trying to get the defense ready, Dalton took three knees on three snaps and the Bears ran the clock down to a few seconds and Cairo Santos kicked a field goal as time expired for another Lions loss. Where have you seen that before?
Who else gives up an eight-minute drive to lose the game? Who else aids that drive by calling timeouts and either not knowing or forgetting the rule book?
Look, Campbell is easy to cheer for and easier to play for and if you watch his team every Sunday you see a group of players that competes in a way that makes it hard to guess their record. He deserves credit for that.
He also deserves a break for the lack of talent on the roster and the injuries — the Lions lost D’Andre Swift and Penei Sewell during the game. But there is plenty he can control that he is not.
The penalty that helped Chicago get the first down is the most egregious.
How about all the regular penalties that led to some of those third-and-forevers?
At some point, Campbell has to figure out how to get his guys to keep from jumping at the line of scrimmage. Nearly every one on the line had a false start.
Most of them had holding penalties, too, and while you can argue holding calls come when a lineman gets beat, there is a mental part of this, too.
Just as there is a mental part when trying to down a punt, as KhaDarel Hodge was trying to do in the second half.
A good punt, too.
Yet Hodge, who was down inside the 10 waiting for it to land, lost sight of the ball and turned away as it bounced, then turned the other way, missing the ball as it bounded into the end zone for a touchback. Hodge stood still for a moment, his head hung, his shoulder slumped, before a few teammates came over to offer encouragement.
He was booed, understandably so. But if you watched him slowly walk back to the sideline and took a seat and hung his head again.
They are feeling this, too.
Zero wins?
Ten losses (and a tie)?
National television and social media around the country blowing up because the Lions ruined Thanksgiving? Well, that’s an overstatement, but also how so many NFL fans feel.
It’s one thing to watch a plucky team find ways to stay in games and compete. It’s another to watch a coach make the mistake that cost his team its first victory.
Yeah, the Bears aren’t good, either — they'd lost five in a row before Thursday. And when they missed a field goal after a holding call pushed them back you figured maybe, possibly, finally, it was the Lions time to get a win.
At that point, the Bears were out-Lioning the Lions. No, that’s a cheap shot. Lazy, even. And I hope you’ll forgive me.
Because the Lions forced that holding. And the youngsters on defense kept making plays and even Jared Goff played well enough to beat a team like Chicago.
He threw two touchdown passes, the first a 39-yarder to Josh Reynolds; it was Goff’s best throw of the season.
And yet?
Here we are, wondering not just if the Lions will go winless again, but beginning to wonder how much time Campbell will need to learn on the job.
Contact Shawn Windsor: 313-222-6487 or swindsor@freepress.com. Follow him on Twitter @shawnwindsor.