It's aggressive to go for it on fourth down when it works. It's reckless when it doesn't, which leaves the Lions looking like the most reckless team in the NFL. They're tied for first this season in fourth-down attempts and they're 25th in conversion rate. They went 1-3 in Sunday's loss to the Bears, with both misses coming inside Chicago's 10-yard line.
A day later, Dan Campbell admitted it might be time to change his approach -- even if the analytics support it.
"We're not good enough right now, we're not functioning well enough right now or efficiently enough to continue down that road until we really try to work on it, and then let's see if we can improve it and get it to where we want," Campbell said. "We're going to have to make a serious focal point on this area to continue that way. Those are the facts."
The Lions are 3-10 on fourth down so far. Only the Dolphins have as many attempts and they've converted five of them. The Browns and Titans are next in fourth down attempts with eight and they have the same 50 percent success rate as the Dolphins. Campbell has trusted the math and his gut on fourth down, but the results have let him down.
"There's already a set of numbers that tell you when and where (to go for it), and from there you just go flow of the game and trust in your team," he said.
Campbell said he "wanted to start the season" with an aggressive approach. He said "it certainly" matters to him that the math has been on his side. But he also wants to win games, and now the Lions are 0-4. Fourth down failures are hardly the main culprit. Detroit's also tied for 27th on third down. Campbell said he spent Sunday night reviewing all of the team's third and fourth down attempts this season to "figure out exactly what we need to do" in those key moments.
Especially if they're going to stay aggressive on fourth down.
"If that's what we're going to do moving forward -- I was trying to give us an upper hand -- well, I need to look at that and we gotta be a lot better," Campbell said. "We're going to have to live in that world in practice. That's going to have to be the main focus for us to continue down that road. Those are the facts, because we're not good enough there right now, third and fourth down, two to three (yards to gain)."
The Lions want to win with their offensive line and ground game. Which makes it strange that they've passed on the bulk of their fourth-down attempts, even stranger when you consider that they have the NFL's second highest first-down rate on rushing attempts. They're 1-2 on fourth down when they run it, 2-8 when they pass it. Campbell said the possibility of running more on third/fourth and short is "certainly something we're going to look at."
So is the possibility of simply punting more on fourth down, at least until Campbell has more faith in his offense to start converting.
