Hello! (edit: after a lot of TL;DR comments, I will bold the main parts, in case you don't want to read all the background prose haha.)
I don’t post here all that often, but I hope you'll indulge me. If you’ve seen me around lately, it was probably about the Detroit Lions. Yes, I’m a huge Detroit fan and a massive Buckeye fan. There’s more of us than you realize. Shouts to my Sunday Crew at Nasty’s in Hilliard!
How’s that work, though?
-I was born and raised in Toledo and have no connection at all to Cleveland or Cincinnati. I’ve spent more time in Detroit than Cleveland and Cinci combined, tenfold.
-I was born in 1989. I fell in love with the Red Wings (which was easy as they won cup after cup with several lines worth of future HOFers) long before the Blue Jackets were a thing.
-I also entered my lifetime of sports consciousness in the brief period the Browns didn’t exist. (My first vivid, recallable football memory was Joe Germaine connecting with David Boston in the ’97 Rose Bowl). At the same time, the Lions had Barry Friggin' Sanders. As a quick little 8-year-old in maybe the 30th percentile in height--with shoes on--there was no more perfect gridiron idol to emulate in backyards and playgrounds with my friends. My #20 jersey was covered in grass stains, always.
-The Pistons were the last domino to fall (I don't care about baseball). It felt hypocritical to be a Detroit football/hockey fan, but not basketball. So I chose the Pistons over the Cavs. The 2004 team cemented that... one of my favorite teams of all time!
-More importantly than any of this, my dad was a Detroit fan, which probably makes all the other details irrelevant, anyways.
-I’ve lived in Ohio my whole life, now reside in Columbus, have 3 degrees from Ohio State, and worked for the University for 5 years.
I was always Buckeyes-first. I’ve got albums of scarlet and gray baby pictures to prove it.
Exhibit A: Baby Goalscorer9
If they were called the Michigan Lions / Red Wings / Pistons and the Ohio Browns / Blue Jackets / Cavs… I probably would have had an identity crisis to work through… but they’re not, so that made everything easy. Also: Go Crew!
Anyways, getting to my point, it’s an interesting time to be a Lions/Buckeye fan. First, it’s really neat watching the Lions’ offensive line and run scheme, which provides a very distinct contrast from what I’ve watched on Saturdays this fall. I’m like 99.9% sure TreVeyon Henderson would have rushed for more YPC *in the NFL* behind the Lions offensive line than he did behind the Buckeyes’ in the Big Ten. I know every team’s philosophy and personnel are different, but I certainly wouldn’t complain if Ryan Day, Bill O’Brien, and Justin Frye studied a little of what Dan Campbell, Ben Johnson, and Hank Fraley did to produce two 1,000 yard / 10 touchdown backs this season. But that’s not what I’m here to discuss today.
The incomparable Ramzy recently wrote an awesome article looking at Ryan Day, specifically focusing on his decisions in big moments. One such moment came at the end of the first half against Michigan this year. You guys know the play I’m talking about. The offense was finally clicking… getting some momentum back… asserting itself. Then it was 4th and short, and Day let the clock run down for a field goal attempt. I remember telling my dad at the time, “I wish we had Dan Campbell coaching us here…” Coach Day decided to trust his unreliable field goal kicker during a critical moment of the game. Be responsible. Duck the pressure. Take the points.
The gamble didn’t pay off, and he’s been fairy criticized since.
My comment to my dad proved to be more prophetic than I hoped, as two months later, the Lions found themselves in an eerily similar situation early in the third quarter. San Francisco had just scored, and momentum was on the line as Detroit faced a 4th and short from the San Francisco 28. There was no hesitation from Dan Campbell, who kept his offense on the field in lieu of a 45 yard field goal attempt. Jarred Goff put the ball a little low, but Josh Reynolds dropped a catchable pass.
The gamble didn’t pay off, and he’s been fairy criticized since.
I actually don’t see this as all that much of a gamble. Here’s some context for the “TAKE THE POINTS!” crowd that may not have been watching the Lions closely all season: Dan Campbell doesn’t trust his kicker. Michael Badgley was signed to the team a month ago. In his career, he’s 37/48 on field goals from 40-49 yards. (77%) This year, when the lions go for it on 4th down with the lead (so, removing desperation downs at the end of games) they convert 71.4% of the time. They had pretty much the same chance of converting that 4th down with their offensive line as they did kicking the field goal with their recently-signed kicker. “Take the points!” indeed. Now, do I wish they would have run David Montgomery off left tackle rather than putting the ball in the air? Yup. But if Josh Reynolds caught that pass, I wouldn’t be complaining.
Which (finally) brings me to my point. Dan Campbell gets a lot of credit for turning around the culture in Detroit. And let me tell you, as a long-suffering lions fan, he deserves every ounce of it. How did he do it? Is it the impassioned locker room speeches and Hard Knocks clips? I guess that’s part of the equation, but the key is this: it feels genuine and authentic. Why? Because when the big moment comes, there’s no hesitation. He’s trusting his players to make a play. That’s a HUGE part of the culture. You can’t have one without the other--that would just feel hollow, superficial even. *insert Lou Holtz call-out meme here*
I 100% believe, without a question of a doubt, that Dan Campbell thought his team had a better chance of converting that 4th and 2 than making a 45 yard field goal. He might have been wrong, but I trust him… more importantly, the players trust him. Remember, he kicked a chip shot field goal on 4th and goal from the San Francisco 3 yard line at the end of the first half, when he was truly "taking the points". He’s not a meat-head who always goes for it, as a lot of people like to portray him. (I’m currently fighting the urge to rage-tweet at Mike Greenberg.)
Here’s the thing, Dan Campbell and Ryan Day spend about an equal amount of time talking about toughness, grit, being aggressive… but one feels a lot more believable than the other. I’ve thought a lot about why.
It might be than Dan Campbell is a behemoth-former-NFL-tight-end who consumes an unhealthy amount of caffeine and probably could do some serious damage to a knee cap if he decided he really wanted to bite it. But I don’t think that’s really the reason. I think the real reason is that when the big moment comes, he doesn’t hesitate, he’s not afraid, and he trusts his team. He’s not worried about criticism, he just goes for the win. The dude is fearless and tough… you know… the stuff other coaches talk about but don’t always act on, when the pressure lands squarely on them. Hollow, superficial even.
That’s why his speeches feel authentic and genuine. That’s why his players believe him when he speaks. That’s why he changed a culture that the last seven head coaches failed to change over three decades.
I’m a coach, though in a *very* different capacity (not football, not college) but I tend to be sympathetic to coaches. I’m not in the “Fire Day!” crowd, at all. (In fact, the “Fire Day!” crowd gets me pretty riled up.) But it has been interesting to watch people criticize Day for not going for it in the big moment AND criticize Campbell for going for it in the big moment. At the end of the day, as a coach, you get judged for the result, not the decision itself. If it works, you’re a genius, if not, you’re an idiot. We all know this, it’s just been interesting to see it juxtaposed so clearly for my two favorite football teams in a two-month time span.
Deviating from the Buckeyes for a second and focusing on the Lions: they didn’t lose the NFC Championship game because of two 4th down decisions. They lost because:
-Jared Goff, relatively unpressured, missed a wide-open Jahmyr Gibbs in the end zone at the end of the first half, leading to a field goal.
- Their next drive, Josh Reynolds dropped a low, but catchable, pass on a key 4th down attempt.
-Immediately after that, the cruelest moment of unbelievable physics saw an oblong ball bounce perfectly off Kindle Vildor’s hand, then face mask, into Aiyuk's hands for San Francisco’s biggest play of the day, by far.
-Jahmyr Gibbs suffered the first lost fumble of his career, right after that.
-Their next drive, Josh Reynolds dropped a wide-open, perfect pass on a key 3rd down attempt, leading to one of only two punts on the day for the Lions.
-On said punt, the over-excited gunner stepped into the end zone, rather than downing the ball on the one-yard-line
-Jarred Goff mishandled not one, but two flea flickers which caused errant throws to open, deep, receivers.
-The lions failed to wrap-up Brock Friggin' Purdy in the backfield several times, allowing sure-sacks to transform into game-changing scrambles.
Basically, everything that could go wrong, did, all at once.
Remember how it felt after the 2019 Clemson game? (You don’t have to answer that, I know you do.) If any one of a dozen 50/50 things went the Buckeyes way (Dobbins' ankle, the dropped swing pass that was led inches too far, the Sean Wade ejection, the Okudah reversed fumble call, Olave breaking off his route) the Bucks would have gone to the national championship to play Joe Burrow.
That’s how this felt. That’s how this feels. I firmly believe if one or two of the bullet points above go Detroit’s way, they’d beat Kansas City (again…) in 12 days and win their first super bowl. I’ll go to my grave thinking that.
The pain is real. I'm not okay.
Alright, enough excuses. In summary, the reason the Lions lost on Sunday is because they did something they haven’t done all season: they made crucial mistakes. Lots of them. At the worst possible time. You can blame momentum or luck or pressure… but that’s why they lost, not a couple 4th down decisions. (Yes, you could argue the 4th down decisions might have led to the momentum and pressure… but as someone who’s watched this team very closely all season, I don’t believe they’re wired that way.)
I don’t really know what my main thesis is at the end of this 2000 word stream of consciousness, but I do know that Ryan Day and Dan Campbell are very different coaches, who both recently handled big moments in the opposite way, yet both are getting raked over coals as though the other decision was obviously correct. I guess my point is that the other decision is not obviously correct.
But for me, in those big moments… like I told my Dad on November 25th: “I wish we had Dan Campbell coaching us here…”
As a player, I think I would, too. And I believe that’s why the Lions out-performed what many projected of their talent this season, and the Buckeyes arguably did the opposite.
