Everything Dan Campbell Said After Buccaneers Loss

Dan Campbell explained issues in the red zone against Buccaneers.

Detroit Lions head coach Dan Campbell talks to Tampa Bay Buccaneers head coach Todd Bowels / Junfu Han / USA TODAY NETWORK via Imagn Images

Here is what Detroit Lions head coach Dan Campbell said following his team's 20-16 loss to the Buccaneers.

Opening Statement: “Start here, right, I would tell (Buccaneers Head) Coach (Todd) Bowles over there, you know, it was a good job. Man, those guys, once again, it’s our third match with them and they go all out over there and once again just play, give you everything they’ve got. It’s unbelievable competition. So, congratulations to those guys, the way they played. That’s one. Two is, you know, I asked for improvement from last week, was the story, and we did improve. We did improve, and their coach cost them. Their head coach cost them this one, so critical error to end the half and 100 percent on me. We improved, there’s areas we’ve got to continue to improve on, but it’s not OK. So anyway, we fought, we got down there, certainly offense, we doubled up in yardage, we get down to the red zone, we can’t get TDs, and that was kind of the story of the game. Defense I thought played lights out, gave us two shots there at the end of the game, and we just couldn’t finish it out.”

On the mechanics of the field goal operation at the end of the first half “There’s nothing that, look, there’s nothing that is going to make any sense to anybody. There’s no way to justify this. It’s a massive error on my part, no one else’s, and it was just between hurry-up field goal and clocking it. And it was 100 percent my fault, 100 percent, and that’s why we have guys on the field who are trying to clock it. It’s just one of those things we work over and over, and we’ve been good, we do everything, and then I mess it up.”

On why the team struggled to score touchdowns in the red zone today: “Yeah, I mean, look, they do change up their coverage a little bit, which we knew they would. They do a good job, there’s a few things they hang their hat on. They played one particular coverage and really pushed out to the flats on some things, and they buzz pretty hard under some routes. And so we just never felt real comfortable. Once you get out far enough, you end up in these third-and-longs down in the red zone, that’s where it gets pretty hard. You start getting up there close to the 10-yard line, and it’s hard to throw it from there, with what they can do coverage-wise. We just couldn’t quite get into rhythm, we couldn’t get the seam, and ultimately it hurt us.”

On what the cutoff is for when the team clocks it versus running the field goal unit out: “Well, pre-snap, it’s 18 seconds before the clock starts, and then if you’re just saying pre-snap, offensively, it’d be 14, 15 seconds. If you need to push it, you can go 14.”

On not being able to take advantage of the Buccaneers having key players out due to injury: “Well, yeah. You always – you feel, ‘Hey, their starters are out in this area.’ And (Buccaneers S Antoine) Winfield’s (Jr.) a hell of a player, believe me. For him to not be in there – because he’s a headache. But how many guys have we had out the last two years and the backups step in and just kick ass? It’s like, this league, there’s so many great players in this league and it’s why you get coached to do what you do and I think a lot of times you actually pay a little closer attention to those guys because you want to help them. If you’re the head coach, coordinator, you don’t want to put them in a compromising position to allow people to help them a little bit. And so, yeah, of course we’d like to do more, but the bottom line – you just have to win. You have to find a way to win. It doesn’t matter if you have all your starters, it doesn’t matter if you have all your backups. You have to find a way to win.”

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On team’s giving the Lions their best shot this season: “Yeah, that’s something that we talked about as a team going into this year. That was, we felt like we kind of crossed over into this threshold. This new threshold of – alright, we’re perceived as a team that is finding ways to win. We’re pretty tough, physical, we play a certain way, we go to the NFC Championship game, so that’s a notch in your hat. You do that – that speaks volumes. I mean, we’re going to Arizona this week. For them, that’s going to be a huge win if they find a way to beat us. So, they’re going to have plenty of motivation for that. But we talk about it as a team, and we know we’re going to get everybody’s best and that’s a good team there. It is a good team. I know they have players out, but it is a good team and it was a good team last year when we faced them twice. But that’s the bottom line. All these games are going to come down to what just happened there. It’s going to come down to the end of the game a lot of the time. And so, that’s the world we’re in, and our guys know that. They know that.”

On how he can help Lions QB Jared Goff get back on track for next week: “Yeah, Goff does a great job of – he’ll rebound. He’ll rebound. Has he played better? Yeah, he’s played better. But I know him and he never stays down. He’s going to be in immediately. He’s going to look at it tonight, he’s going to come in tomorrow and he’s going to take ownership and he’s going to be better. That’s the way he’s wired and it’s what makes him who he is, and so that’s it. Once again, everybody around him, we have to help, and everybody do your job, and everybody’s got a role on the team and we all kind of help each other out. So, that’ll – he’ll get in a rhythm, and he’ll be fine, and we have plenty around him to help as well."

On why Aidan Hutchinson was able to have a dominant game: “Well, once again, Hutch, his amount of growth. It goes without saying, his motor is unbelievable. This guy is – to be able to play at the rate that he plays at, at that intensity, for that many snaps in a game is rare. Then, on top of that, he’s got talent and he’s continued to develop his different moves. He’s got different moves now. He’s developed, he’s got the long arm, he’s got the spin, he can dip and rip, he can chop, he can swat. So, if you ever get one-on-one, he’s going to eat you up more times than not. I would say they held the ball a bit more today than what we saw last week. I mean, these guys tried to push him a little bit more, five-step – and early, I didn’t feel like they were helping on some of the passes, whereas the game got later, they were not going to allow that anymore and they chipped and nudged. And so he’s having to try and beat double teams. But he’s a force right now. He’s a force.”

On his decision to punt the ball in the fourth quarter instead of letting Lions K Jake Bates try a long field goal: “I know that was a long field goal, we let (Lions P Jack) Fox punt it in there, right? Yeah, so that’s something we kind of talked about this week was they got a pretty good punter over there. If we get in one of these, I would rather use Fox. From the time we started in spring, let’s get in there and let’s try to kick it inside the 10, pin them, let them play defense. I felt like we had enough time. We had probably a couple of possessions left before that, was how I felt.”

On what the team loses offensively in the red zone when they are not able to get the ball to Lions TE Sam LaPorta: “Yeah, I mean, well, we lose points, which is kind of why you’re asking what it is. We have things in for Sam, we called one of them early, and they did a good job on him, and then we dumped it down to (Lions RB Jahmyr) Gibbs, and we made pretty good yardage there. So, we have stuff in for him. They did a good job, they covered things well, and so much of what we’re about when you get down there is if it’s not there, you check it down, and man we knifed the defense, and just try to chip away at it until you can get in there, and then either run it in or throw it in. We weren’t great at that early in the game, but we got better, but LaPorta will be fine. He’s going to be fine, and we know there’s a place for him here. We’ve got to get him the ball a little bit. We’ve got the guys here, so we’ll clean ourselves off and move forward.”

On if he will beat himself up over some of the mistakes beyond just the field goal mishap: “Oh, sure. Yeah, sure. I mean, look, there’s plenty of things that we’ve got to clean up, absolutely. But you’ve got to take ownership, and this game’s no different than anything else. The players have got it hard enough as it is, going toe-to-toe with a good opponent. To have to overcome whatever that is, could be calls, could be coaching, could be whatever, and it’s too hard. So it’s a bottom line. But yeah, there’s things we’ve got to clean up, and they will be acknowledged, and it’s, listen, we’ve got the right guys here, we’ll clean it up. We’ll move forward.”

On Lions WR Amon-Ra St. Brown’s injury status toward the end of the game: “No, he’s alright. I don’t think it’s anything long-term, so that’s good news.”

On Lions CB Ennis Rakestraw Jr.’s injury status: “Yeah, he was a – It happened in pre-game. It was just a little hamstring, I don’t know. That happened literally four minutes before we had to turn in the inactives, so we were up against the clock.”