Head coach Dan Campbell of the Detroit Lions defended his decision to go for two fourth-down conversions in the second half of the NFC championship game. However, he sounded less comfortable about another move he made during the fourth quarter of the game.
With 1:05 remained in regulation, the Lions faced a third-and-goal from the San Francisco 49ers’ 1-yard line. Detroit still had three timeouts.
Dan Campbell, head coach of the Detroit Lions, defended his choice to go for two fourth-down conversions in the second half of the NFC championship game. He sounded less confident about another move he made in the fourth quarter of the game.
With 1:05 left in regulation, the Lions faced third-and-goal from the San Francisco 49ers’ 1-yard line. Detroit still had three timeouts.
“The easiest thing to do is pitch it. “Probably should’ve been the right thing,” Campbell told reporters. “But, personally, I wanted to run it. I figured we’d just pop it. We had only two minutes [drilled] all the way down the pitch, throwing the football, and they were in a four-down front, so I thought we’d walk right in.”We just missed a block, so I netimeouted to use a .””In retrospect, I should have thrown it four times, but I thought it was going to be easy. And that did not work out. So I gambled and lost.The Lions had only two timeouts and 56 seconds to recover the ball, so they attempted an onside kick. However, throughout the 2023 regular season, only 4.8% of onside kicks were successful.With such little time, the Lions may have tried an onside kick even if they had all three timeouts. However, if Detroit’s defence had prevented San Francisco from gaining a first down, all three timeouts would have insured the Lions had anotr possession, even without an onside recove
