Dan Campbell's faith in his offense pays off for Detroit Lions in win over L.A. Chargers
INGLEWOOD, Calif. — The Detroit Lions couldn’t stop one of the best quarterbacks in the NFL. So they took the ball out of his hands in order to beat him.
Riverboat Dan Campbell?
Nah, just darn smart coaching. He saw what was happening, and he knew what would happen if he didn’t take one last gamble against the Los Angeles Chargers.
Never mind that it was fourth down. That the game was tied at 38. That 1:47 was left in the game. Campbell chose to go with the unit that made it to California.
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And it wasn’t his defense.
Lions QB Jared Goff dropped back, waited, felt the pressure, stayed calm, and found rookie tight end Sam LaPorta for 6 yards. The Chargers had no timeouts.
Kneel. Kneel. Kneel. Field goal.
Game.
The ball sailed through the uprights as time expired for a 41-38 victory, and then, as has become a tradition this season on the road, the team celebrated with thousands of Honolulu Blue-wearing faithful, who took over SoFi Stadium, and nearby LAX Airport, for that matter — a flight from Detroit on Sunday morning was stuffed with buzzing fans.
They can’t get enough of this team or this coach and the toughness both continue to show. The Lions lost several of these games last season, usually coming up a play short in shootouts.
It’s not ideal, obviously, giving up 38 points — but every time Los Angeles tied the game, the Lions responded, usually with a pass to Amon-Ra St. Brown, who caught eight passes for 156 yards.
But it wasn’t only him. It never is.
This coaching staff will lean on anyone, and ask everyone to make a play no matter how high — or intense — the leverage. Does a tie game midway through the fourth on the road against a surging offense count?
I’d say so, not that Campbell or Ben Johnson worry about that.
And so, why not throw to Brock Wright on third-and-1 with seven minutes left? Why not fake a handoff, freeze the linemen and toss it over the top for a 25-yard touchdown?
Wright is on the roster. He’s a pro. His coaches believe. And they show it every week.
That faith is partly why this team shows such resilience. Yeah, the Chargers were merely 4-4 coming into the game, but they have talent, and were playing in their own time zone, three hours different from the visitors.
It’s not easy winning out here, no matter the opponent — especially when the opponent has QB Justin Herbert throwing to wideout Keenan Allen.
The Lions couldn’t deal with them, especially in the second half, and when they tied the game at 31 after a series of demoralizing whiffs and mistakes?
It didn’t look good — at all.
There was a roughing the passer call on Julian Okwara that offset an intentional grounding flag and then a scramble on third down when the line lost contain. Look, other teams give up yards to quarterbacks with good feet, too, not just the Lions. But it looks like the Lions struggle more because their own quarterback isn't a scrambler.
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It’s a jolt to the system.
Herbert isn't Lamar Jackson or even Josh Allen, but he shows an easy grace and sneaky quickness, as he did when he easily outran Aidan Hutchinson to the sideline, buying time to throw to Quentin Johnston 17 yards down the field.
That play eventually led to a touchdown to tie the game at 31. But, really, take your pick of the plays Herbert made, even without his main receiver, on the drive. Perhaps none were bigger than the first third-down conversion, when it looked like the Lions had him hemmed in the pocket before he squirted out, then raced for 13 yards to convert.
Try shaking off all that.
Oh, and this too: A couple of pass interference penalties on the same drive, including one in the end zone on fourth down that gave Los Angeles a fresh set of downs from the 1-yard-line. They needed every one of them as the Lions held the first three attempts.
On Sunday, so many times, the Lions would come close to making the play to stop the drive and then miss the tackle or draw the flag or succumb to supreme skill, sometimes on the same play. Herbert had time, yes, but made the sort of throws only a handful of guys in the league can make.
So, yes, the defense had chances to force punts, and even force a turnover on downs, but this same quarterback and offense on Monday ripped the New York Jets, featuring one of the best defensive units in the league.
In other words, the Lions weren’t going to stop them.
Sure, sometimes a team and a quarterback and a receiver get on a roll, and it creates a percussive kind of rhythm that’s impossible to slow. And maybe that’s part of what happened.
But the Lions can’t spend a whole game making so many miscues of focus. Not if they want to get to where they want to go.
The Vikings won again, if you noticed. They beat the Saints to improve to 5-4 and stay two games back of the Lions with two head-to-head matchups coming in December and January. They are coming. Or at least they aren’t going away. The NFC North is there for the taking, but the race to get there will get tougher, especially if the Lions can’t clean up their act on one side of the ball.
True, the Lions won’t see another quarterback as good as Herbert the rest of the way. That’ll help. And if they do — hello, Joshua Dobbs? — they can always do what they just did: Keep it away from him, and lean on their own offense, an increasingly special group.
Campbell did that Sunday, and he got the kind of win that was unimaginable not so long ago.
Contact Shawn Windsor: 313-222-6487 or swindsor@freepress.com. Follow him @shawnwindsor.
This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Detroit Lions thriving on coach Dan Campbell's faith in offense
