ALLEN PARK -- The Detroit Lions threw downfield more than they had all season, with quarterback Jared Goff arguably delivering his best performance while wearing the Honolulu blue.
Despite this, the offense still struggled mightily on third down, converting only two of 11 attempts in the 29-27 win against the Minnesota Vikings in Week 13. Lions coach Dan Campbell is feeling good about his first win in the big chair, but those misfires on third down stuck out in his review of the action from Sunday.
“Here’s what’s negative -- the third downs are still not good enough,” Campbell said. “And certainly when you go for it on fourth-and-1 twice and don’t get it, that’s a gut punch, that’s not good enough. I wanted to be aggressive this game, and I felt like we needed to be, but you don’t want to be aggressive and then not get it because now look what happens. I mean, we put ourselves in a bind. That’s not the point of it. Defense bailed us out. Offensively we came through when we needed to. We got to start faster in both halves offensively. It takes us a minute to get going, and once we do, we strike pretty good, but then we hit a lull again.”
It’s worth noting both of Detroit’s successful third-down plays came on the game’s final drive, with Goff marching the offense down the field in the final 120 seconds.
The first conversion came on third-and-10 with 1:14 left, with the Lions out of timeouts and backed up against the wall. Goff hit backup running back Godwin Igwebuike, who took it outside and got out of bounds while adding 13 yards. Campbell made sure to give it up to the converted safety for his job after the catch, saying: “That was a big one. That took a lot of effort because first, it was almost like, ‘You know what? Just split them and get upfield, get the first, get down, and we’ll run up, we’ll clock it.’”
“We knew coming in (there) wasn’t much time on the clock and no timeouts,” Igwebuike said. “JG made it clear soon as we got in on the first huddle, like ‘yo, we got no timeouts. Got to get out of bounds.’ It was great leadership and presence by him just to get us all on the same page. When it came to that third-and-10, I knew I was running over the ball, kind of like a checkdown option for him and I just found him looking at me, so I’m like ‘all right, let’s get right, go ahead and dump it off to me.’ When I got the ball in my hands, I was able to turn around and saw that I had some room. Saw a corner on my outside, baited him inside a little bit, so we could make it to the sideline on this. I was able to break a tackle like you said and get the first down and get out of bounds. I think great job by JG just setting the precedent and us just being able to execute it.”
The second came in another dire spot for the offense, with Goff and company facing third-and-6 after eating a delay of game penalty on third-and-1 with 23 seconds on the clock. Goff hit T.J. Hockenson for 10 yards, then sprinted under center to spike the ball with only 10 seconds coming off the board.
While it worked out in the end, with Goff hitting Amon-Ra St. Brown in the end zone as time expired, there’s no denying that you’re not going to win many games failing to move the chains on third down for 58 minutes. Detroit’s third-down conversion rate of 31.5% is last in the league, moving the chains on 47-of-149 tries this year.
The Lions have been aggressive on fourth down, failing to convert either of their attempts on Sunday, with their third-down struggles playing into that. While the fourth-and-1 rollout where Goff was sacked and lost the fumble is getting most of the attention, Campbell says the one play he wishes he could have back was the third-and-2 leading into that one.
“It’s funny because when I got back to it if I could have a play over in that game, it wouldn’t have been the fourth-and-1. It would have been the third-and-2 right before it,” Campbell said. “That’s the one I regret. I wish that I had given a better play to Jamaal Williams there, and we wouldn’t have even been sitting in a fourth-and-1.
“As far as the fourth-and-1, look, did I love it? No, however, if we would’ve -- we could be so much better on how we should’ve done that play. Just the little details to it, we would have outflanked the defense, so there again, we just -- a couple little things there procedurally and the way we needed to function on that play. It would’ve been there, so it didn’t work out, but more than anything, I regret the third-and-2 call that put us into that.”
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