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Dan Campbell says he ‘totally screwed my team over’ in Lions loss to Bucs
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Dan Campbell says he ‘totally screwed my team over’ in Lions loss to Bucs

According to Detroit Lions coach Dan Campbell, the mistake that cost the team three points late in the first half was entirely his fault.

“(I) completely screwed my team over,” Campbell told the FOX broadcast during halftime. “That’s on me, we’re going for the clock, clock it, it’s not a Hurricane (call). I made a decision I shouldn’t have made, and our team’s going to have to overcome it. That’s the bottom line.”

Note: “Hurricane” refers to bringing the field goal unit onto the field for a final attempt while the clock is still running.

The Lions had the ball deep in Tampa Bay Buccaneers territory, but were out of timeouts late in the half. Quarterback Jared Goff found Amon-Ra St. Brown down to the Buccaneers’ 8-yard line with about 11 seconds left and the clock running. At that point, the Lions began to rush their field goal team up the field while the offense scrambled to set up for a spike.

Finally, the Lions hit the ball with four seconds left, but with at least half of the field goal team still on the field. An overcounter penalty was called, and a 10-second runoff portion of the infraction ended the half.

That play was emblematic of Detroit’s struggles in the red zone on Sunday, with the Lions finding the end zone just once in seven red zone trips, and scored only each points on four of those trips. Still, Campbell believed the team had improved enough from last week, but ultimately the coaching got in the way.

“I asked for improvement from last week, was the story, and we improved,” Campbell said after the game. “We improved, and their coach cost them. Their head coach cost them this week. Critical mistake (at the) end of the half, and 100 percent on me. We improved, there are areas we need to continue to improve, but (the mistake) is not OK.”

With the final score 20-16, those three points at the end of the half would have made all the difference. Detroit had several late drives that got into field goal position, but because they needed to score a touchdown, they couldn’t convert.