Coach Dan Campbell after Sunday's game
The Detroit Lions looked, well, like the Lions. They lost Sunday to the Chicago Bears in a rather pathetic showing in the Windy City in which Coach Dan Campbell gambled on some fourth down plays with a quarterback who played like a second-stringer.
Detroit News columnist Bob Wojnowski writes:
Dan Campbell said he’d do it again, he didn’t regret the fourth-down gambles, he trusts his players to convert. It’s an admirable stance, to stand by bold convictions.
But this is the evolution of a young coach, and Campbell is learning there’s a fine line between aggressiveness and recklessness. He has straddled the line, and in a 24-14 loss to the Bears on Sunday, he fell over it. Five times the Lions drove inside the Bears’ 10-yard line and only once did they score points.
An old football axiom says you get beat by settling for field goals. An older, less-recited axiom says you get beat if you come up empty 80% of the time inside the 10. I agree you don’t kick field goals against a high-powered opponent, but the Bears were coming off one of the worst offensive outputs in NFL history last week.
The Lions are 0-4. The Jacksonville Jaguars are the only other NFL team that is winless.
