'Their coach cost them this one' Dan Campbell takes full blame for game costing decision he made in the first half

The Detroit Lions lost a tough game to the Tampa Bay Buccaneers on Sunday and beyond going 1-7 in the red zone, the biggest thing that may have cost the Lions the game was their big gaffe at the end of the first half. The Lions were moving down field, but it became pretty clear […]

Mike Payton Detroit Lions Beat Writer
Add as preferred source on Google
Lon Horwedel-Imagn Images

The Detroit Lions lost a tough game to the Tampa Bay Buccaneers on Sunday and beyond going 1-7 in the red zone, the biggest thing that may have cost the Lions the game was their big gaffe at the end of the first half.

The Lions were moving down field, but it became pretty clear that they weren't going to score a touchdown, so the plan was to spike the ball and quick get the kicking unit onto the field to at least kick a field goal, but the kicking team got sent a little to fast and there were too many men on the field as Goff was spiking the ball. 

That caused a flag and a 10 second runoff that cost the Lions the ability to try for the field goal and get points on the board. Campbell took the blame after the game.

"You know, I asked for improvement from last week. That was the story. And we did improve. We did improve, and their coach cost them. Their head coach cost them this one."  Campbell said. "So critical error and 100% on me. We improved, there's areas we got to continue to improve on but it's not okay. 

There's nothing that is gonna make any sense to anybody. There's no way to justify this. It's  a massive error on my part, no one else's, and it was just between Hurry up field goal and clocking it and it was 100% my fault 100%. And that's why we have guys on the field. We're trying to clock it. It's just, you know, it's one of those things. We work on over and over and and we're good. We've been good. We do everything, and then I mess it up."

There's no doubt that that it sucks top see that happen and you don't want to see the Lions lose, but you have to hand it to Campbell for taking the accountability here. It would have been so much easier to blame other things and or just ignore it all together, he came out to the post game presser and brought it up before anyone else could. That's a good leader of men right there.