There are always coaching decisions, certain plays and outcomes in games that stay with coaches or players. With a rematch of Detroit’s Week 3 loss in Minneapolis against the Vikings set to take place at Ford Field on Sunday, Lions head coach Dan Campbell said one of those regrets for him was how the Vikings contest ended with the Lions on the wrong side of a 28-24 outcome.
After that contest, Campbell lamented a decision to try a long field goal instead of going for it on a 4th and 4 play at the Minnesota 36-yard line leading 24-21 with just over a minute left in the game. Instead of attempting the long field goal, Campbell wished he would have given his offense a chance to win it with a conversion. He didn’t. Kicker Austin Seibert missed the 54-yard field goal try and Minnesota took advantage of the short field to score the winning touchdown with less than a minute left.
“Look, it burns. Of course, it burns me,” Campbell said. “I mean that’ll be there until the day I die. That’s not going to go away. It does, but I also know, I can’t wallow in that, and let that pull me down.
“I mean it is what it is, and it happened for a reason, and honestly, I think us losing five in a row is why we’re where we’re at right now, so that’s kind of how I look at it. Maybe we needed this to happen to get to where we’re at right now at this point.”
It still doesn’t lessen the sting for Campbell.
“I’ll never forget because that to me – I let my players down,” Campbell said. “And it’s hard enough to have success and to win in this league without your coach doing something that pulls you back and I felt like that was one of those.”
It’s one of those coaching decisions Campbell has learned from and isn’t likely to make again.
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