When the 49ers tackled Amon-Ra St. Brown to the turf after a two-yard gain, there were a little more than seven minutes remaining in the third quarter of the NFC championship game. He had needed four yards to secure a first down, so the play had been a failure, and perhaps no surprise given the choice to run a wideout from the backfield in that circumstance rather than one of the team’s two high-performing tailbacks.
Remember a couple of Super Bowls ago when all those TV ads brazenly declared, “Fortune favors the bold”? It turned out to be a crock then when it came to finances, and so it was Sunday in the game of football.
Lions coach Dan Campbell gambled -- and lost.
And then he bet big again -- and busted.
Campbell chose not to have the Lions attempt two manageable field goals and lost by one, 34-31.
MORE: How Lions blew historic lead | Campbell explains 4th-down decisions
The NFL’s postseason history encompasses more than 90 years, and it includes the preposterous decision by Seahawks coach Pete Carroll to pass from the one-yard line in the waning seconds of the Super Bowl when he had a guy nicknamed “Beast Mode” in his backfield. But Campbell’s management of the second half against the 49ers will rank with the worst big-game coaching performances this sport has seen.
This could have been a beautiful story, Detroit advancing to its first Super Bowl with a dazzling road performance against the favored 49ers. But you can’t have a happy ending if you light the final third of the book on fire.
Given two opportunities to send on his kicker to attempt mid-range field goals, Campbell chose to worship the book of analytics rather than coach this specific game as it developed, and there is no debating it cost the Lions the opportunity to advance to the Super Bowl.
At halftime, the Lions held a 17-point lead after brilliant performances by the likes of running backs David Montgomery and Jahmyr Gibbs and tight end Sam LaPorta. The 49ers started the second half with the ball, and they burned through nine plays to slice just three points from that deficit.
St. Brown’s run was the seventh play of the ensuing Lions possession, which advanced them to the San Francisco 28. So, doing the addition even the most challenged mathematicians who follow NFL football can handle – seven yards for the snap and placement, 10 yards to clear the end zone – it was clear that the Lions were a 45-yard field goal away from wiping out all the effort and execution the 49ers had invested in their comeback attempt. They would have only a third of the game remaining to conjure the three scores necessary to tie things up or take the lead.
That never became a problem because Campbell did what he usually does -- as if a Week 5 game against the Panthers is the same as a conference championship game he’s leading by two touchdowns -- and had quarterback Jared Goff attempt to pass for the first-down conversion. Josh Reynolds was open and should have caught the pass, but he did not. That’s one of the variables that enters the equation when a team decides to go for it.
That reckless decision was ridiculous enough, and its imprudence was obvious in less than four minutes of football. The 49ers drove 72 yards in five plays to cut the Lions lead to 24-17, then Gibbs fumbled away their next possession on the first play from scrimmage. Shortly after, the game was tied on Christian McCaffrey’s one-yard TD run.
The momentum was gone, and the lead had vanished in a shade more than five minutes into the final quarter. The game, though, almost miraculously, was not over, because the Detroit D held the Niners to a field goal with 9:52 left.
That meant the Lions still had a chance to tie it after Goff drove them 45 yards to the San Francisco 30 two minutes later. Had Campbell sent out kicker Michael Badgley to kick a 47-yarder, it’s quite likely his team would have been in a tie game with half the final quarter still to play. Badgley had not missed a kick since winning back his job in mid-December, and was eight-of-10 on kicks between 40 and 49 yards last season.
And still on 4th-and-3, with the botched Reynolds pass not even an hour old, Campbell chose to try the same strategy. His team has attempted to convert fourth downs 20 percent more than any other NFL team since he was hired three years ago. He had gone for it on 4th-and-3 (or longer) more than all but two teams, and they converted on 30 percent. So, in the pursuit of four more points, he bet on a strategy that bombed more than two-thirds of the time.
Man, I stopped taking math as soon as my high school’s curriculum allowed, and one of the glories of attending Point Park College – now Point Park University, for sure – four decades ago was the absence of a math requirement for journalism/communications majors. But I know Campbell’s numbers don’t add up.
He abdicated control of the game by trying to show off how audacious he is, and soon after, he surrendered an opportunity to get back what he’d blown.
Dan Quinn and the Falcons wasted a 28-3 halftime lead against the Patriots in Super Bowl 51 with some questionable decisions that allowed Tom Brady to rally. A few years earlier, the Pats benefited from that infamous decision to have Russell Wilson throw a pass at the goal line instead of handing the football to Marshawn Lynch with the Seahawks needing a late touchdown to win.
They’ve got to be relieved now.
Because on a stage nearly as big, Campbell made twice as many ludicrous decisions.
“I just felt really good about us converting,” he said afterward. “I don’t regret those decisions.”
The convenient explanation is the Lions did this sort of thing all the time; that they got so far in this season by being aggressive. But you wouldn’t expect a team that succeeds by throwing long passes to be airing out first-down go-routes late in the fourth quarter while owning a 10-point lead.
The theme in situations like this is to say: This is what we’ve always done. Thing is, that’s an excuse, not an explanation.
