After suffering five losses by at least 20 points in their final season under Matt Patricia, the Lions were headed for another in their first game under Dan Campbell. They were down 41-17 late in the fourth quarter. About five minutes later, they had a first down on San Francisco's 25-yard line with a chance to tie it. It was the same old story, until it wasn't.
The outcome was no different. The Lions lost, (their defense got shredded), and now they gird their loins for a Week 2 trip to Lambeau. But where last year's team would have folded in the fourth, Campbell is proud of this year's group for showing some fight.
He said Tuesday on the Stoney & Jansen Show that he learned "what I had hoped" about his players in their desperate rally in Week 1.
"They weren’t going to treat this like, man, this is just like last year. Things go bad and it doesn’t look like there’s a light at the end of the tunnel and they lose a little spark. They didn’t do that, they didn’t," Campbell said. "They did exactly what we talked about: just play the situation, play the play in front of you. At some point when you realize it’s 41-17, you can’t look at the scoreboard anymore."
Instead, you have to do what it takes to change it: getting stops on defense and scoring points on offense. One play, one series, one drive at a time.
"That’s all you can worry about," Campbell said. "And pretty soon, just as quick as you got yourself in a hole you can get yourself out of a hole, and at least you could see that. They knew that and there was a little validation in that. They did fight, they never gave up, and I’m proud of them for that."
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Not that Campbell is here for moral victories. Asked how he slept after the 41-33 loss, he said, "You don't."
He was probably watching tape. Specifically, he was probably watching tape of a defense that allowed 442 yards and 8.0 yards per play, a year after the worst defense in franchise history allowed 420 yards per game and 6.3 yards per play. The urge might be to blame the pass rush after the Lions produced just one sack, "but we didn't always get them in those situations," Campbell said.
That's because the 49ers averaged 6.3 yards per play on first and second down, mostly by running through Detroit's defense.
"I felt like when we got them in third down we did pretty good. We were good on third down," Campbell said. "It’s the first- and second-down efficiency where we got in trouble. When you allow them to run the ball, man, now everything is manageable for them. They don’t have to get into drop-back. It all started with setting the edges on the run, building the wall."
The Lions did hold the 49ers to 3-9 on third down, though one of those conversions was a 79-yard touchdown catch by Deebo Samuel. It was Elijah Mitchell, a sixth-round rookie, who gashed them on the ground. All in all, a humbling afternoon for Detroit's defense.
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"You got a taste of it live, full-go, against a good team and now we know our own deficiencies. Now that there’s no more feeling good about ourselves as far as camp looked good when it was Detroit versus Detroit, now you know what it looks like when somebody is really, truly trying to game-plan you. But the beauty is, it’s all correctible stuff, it really is. And we can clean it up. These guys will come back to work this week and we’ll be just fine," Campbell said.
Other highlights from Campbell's interview on 97.1 The Ticket:
On the sideline scene between Aubrey Pleasant and Jeff Okudah: "I don’t like it, but I don’t dislike it. It’s what goes on on the sidelines. It’s high emotions, man, it’s high stress and sometimes it’s the only way to communicate. You have to get through, you gotta break through that barrier. And sometimes there’s players and coaches when you get one blow-up, now you can finally get some work done, if that makes sense. It just happens that way naturally. I don’t want disruption, but I know this, things got cleaned up after that. So that’s the way it goes sometimes. And those things, when you’re looking at it from afar, that gets blown way out of proportion. It’s not what you think. Those things happen in practice all the time, but nobody sees all that. It’s not like there’s anything different going on on live TV than what’s going on in practice."
On if it's harder to move on from a loss as a coach than as a player: "It is, because you’re trying to digest the whole thing. You’re trying to digest, look, what do we have to do better collectively? As a player you’re so much more focused on your own performance and what do I need to do better to help my team? As a coach you have to look not only at yourself, but step back and ask where can I help in other areas that does not take away from us but actually supplements us? So, yeah, there’s a lot more that goes into it where, how can I help, do I need to extend myself more here, did I give my coordinators enough? There is a lot more that goes with it."
On areas where he can improve: "There were some things that I need to communicate much more clearly than I did. Let’s put it that way. I can be much more clear about certain situations and things that I want done, which I will be and will do."