On Sunday, the Detroit Lions‘ comeback bid came up just short as they fell 38-35 at home to the Philadelphia Eagles, and Lions’ head coach Dan Campbell‘s decision to attempt an onside kick has some questioning what he was thinking.
During the third quarter, after the Lions had scored a touchdown to cut the Eagles’ lead to 31-21, Campbell made the controversial decision to attempt an onside kick. Unfortunately, the Lions could not recover the kick and the Eagles proceeded to march down the short field and score a TD of their own to extend their lead to 38-21.
Dan Campbell felt good about his decision to attempt onside kick vs. Eagles
On Monday, Dan Campbell spoke to reporters and he says he felt good about his decision to try the onside kick.
“Obviously hindsight, it’s like, well it didn’t work, we shouldn’t have done that,” he said Monday. “Because that is the easy thing to say, it’s like well just kick away. But, man, I felt like it was the time to do it and I wanted to see if we could get one. We wanted it a little more toward the sideline, a little shorter but I put that on me. I mean, we’ll keep working on it for a little bit and feel like it’s there. Maybe you put it on the shelf, but I just felt like it was the right time to do it. I was willing to give up and say, at the very least, that our defense was gonna hold and they won’t have the ball very long and, okay, we give up a field goal, we’re still down two scores and our offense is starting to cook now. I just felt good about it.
“My fear was, man, they’re gonna hold the ball for eight minutes even if we do get a stop. And they’ve chewed up eight minutes, even with a stop you’re forced into two-minute mode earlier than you’d want to be. So that was just kind of the thought. I’m very aware what you do to your defense when you don’t get one of those.”
Nation, do you agree with Dan Campbell that it was the right call to attempt the onside kick?
