Detroit Lions coach Dan Campbell keeps saying the same thing after losses. Clean up the little things. Stop the backbreaking penalties. Create turnovers. Maybe get the ball to bounce your way once in a while.

I know that annoys Lions fans. I get it. Every time I hear it, part of me wonders if that’s really enough. The Detroit defense just gave up 445 yards to the Carolina Panthers. Bryce Young threw for 329 yards, Tetairoa McMillan went for 192, and Chuba Hubbard ran for 122. That’s a defense with real problems, and I don’t know if trades are going to fix them.

So I tried something I don’t normally do. I ran a simulation of Sunday’s loss to Carolina, and I changed almost nothing.

The rules of the simulation

We’re not fixing the defense. We’re not making Kelvin Sheppard call a perfect game. We’re not taking away McMillan’s catches, and we’re not giving Jared Goff completions on passes that fell incomplete. Roughly 90% to 95% of this game stays exactly the way it happened.

Here’s what changes. All of the procedural, pre-snap penalties are gone. Defensive pass interference and anything that happened during a play stays. On top of that, the Lions get one bounce. That’s it.

Brock Wright’s false start on the opening drive is gone first. It doesn’t change anything. The Lions still stall, and Jake Bates still kicks a field goal.

Things shift at the end of the first half. Carolina has the ball with 1:15 left, and Young hits McMillan for 18 yards down to the Detroit 29. Ennis Rakestraw really did punch the ball out of McMillan’s hands on that play. The problem is it went out of bounds. Rakestraw did his job, so this is where we give Detroit its bounce.

I’m not getting greedy here. In the real game, the Panthers kicked a field goal with 32 seconds left. Goff then hit Jameson Williams for 49 yards, and Detroit kicked a field goal before the break. The Lions keep their three points. Carolina just never gets its own. Instead of a 16-16 tie at halftime, Detroit leads 16-13.

The third quarter stays ugly

This part matters. The defense still struggles. Carolina still opens the second half with an 88-yard touchdown drive. The Lions still answer with a field goal. The Panthers still go 85 yards, and Hubbard still scores. Carolina leads 26-19.

Then comes another little thing. Detroit has second-and-9 at the Carolina 38. Blake Miller false starts, pushing it back to the 43. Goff throws two incompletions, the Lions take a delay of game on fourth down, and Jack Fox punts.

Take away both penalties. Those same two incompletions leave Detroit with fourth-and-9 from the 38. That’s a 56-yard try for Bates, who was 4-of-4 on Sunday and had already hit from 54. I’m giving him that one. Now it’s 26-22.

Carolina’s next drive stays the same. The Lions keep them out of the end zone, and Ryan Fitzgerald kicks a field goal to make it 29-22.

Where everything flips

The Lions drive all the way to the Carolina 15. They throw three straight incompletions to set up fourth-and-10. Then they take a delay of game, making it fourth-and-15. Then Tate Ratledge false starts, and it’s fourth-and-20.

They run the play anyway. Goff throws underneath to Amon-Ra St. Brown, who laterals to Jahmyr Gibbs for 13 yards. It isn’t enough, and Detroit turns it over on downs.

Here’s the thing. Don’t change the play. Just remove those two penalties. From fourth-and-10 at the 15, that same 13-yard gain puts the Lions at the 2 with first-and-goal. Two completely avoidable mistakes were the difference between first-and-goal and Carolina football. In our game, Detroit scores and ties it 29-29.

It gets crazier. After the real turnover on downs, the Panthers went three plays for three yards and punted. Keep it. The Lions’ next actual possession went 62 yards in 10 plays and ended with a Sam LaPorta touchdown. Keep that too. Detroit leads 36-29.

Carolina’s final real possession doesn’t produce any points, and Detroit gets the ball back with just over two minutes remaining and a seven-point lead. Now, instead of desperately trying to drive the field and save the game, the Lions have a chance to run out the clock and close it. In our simulation, a 32-26 loss becomes a 36-29 win.

Look, football doesn’t work this way. You can’t change something in the second quarter and guarantee every play after it happens the same. That’s not what I’m trying to prove. I wanted to see whether Campbell’s argument holds water, and that’s the part that blew me away. We didn’t fix the defense. Young still threw for 329. McMillan still torched the secondary. We just removed some procedural penalties and kept one fumble inbounds.

Weirdly, I’m not sure that should make fans feel better. This defense still has major problems. Detroit will probably need a new defensive coordinator after the season, a bigger investment in the secondary, and a better draft and free agency.

But it does show how thin the margin is. The Lions don’t need to become a different team overnight to win games. They need to stop making bad situations worse. Don’t turn fourth-and-10 into fourth-and-20. Knock the ball out. Maybe have it bounce your way once.

I don’t know if they can do that. I don’t know if fans would even accept wins that way. We’ll see what the Lions do against Arizona.

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