The defense was awful on Sunday but the Detroit Lions offense kept the team in the game until their final offensive snap.
Unfortunately, that final play, which was a play-action pass, did not involve the Lions' best offensive threats, Kenny Golladay and Marvin Jones. Instead, Lions offensive coordinator Darrell Bevell elected to go with a goal-line package, which did not include Golladay or Jones.
http://gty.im/1184382083
As you know by now, the play did not work and the Lions lost 31-24.
On Tuesday, Bevell defended his play call by saying he felt they were running the ball well enough to call a play-action pass.
“Felt like, from the 1, we were running the ball well enough to be able to go with a little play-action. Felt we had good matchups — we've got good size. Unfortunately, weren't able to execute it the way we wanted to.”
“We were on the 1-yard line, went with a goal-line package — those guys are not involved in that package. … That was the one, in that moment, we decided to go with.”
More Bevell, on pulling his wide receivers off the field there: "We were on the 1-yard line, went with a goal-line package — those guys are not involved in that package. … That was the one, in that moment, we decided to go with."
— Chris Burke (@ChrisBurkeNFL) November 5, 2019
Nation, are you buying this defense? What play would you have called?
