Somewhere along the way, the “take the points” crowd—the coaches who default to kicking short field goals or punting in order to play for field position—pulled off the incredible trick of aligning themselves with the “real,” tough, old-school football crowd. It’s simply good branding that the coaches who make the smart, analytically savvy decisions are often viewed as if they’re riverboat gamblers riding a hot streak, not some second-year Deloitte analysts making PowerPoints.
And then, of course, there’s Dan Campbell.
The Lions head coach is actually aggressive. Since Campbell was hired in 2021, Detroit has attempted more fourth-down conversions than any other team in the NFL. So it wasn’t at all out of character when Campbell chose to go for five different fourth-down tries in Thursday’s 34-31 win over the Packers. The Lions successfully converted four of those attempts, including a fourth-and-1 from the Green Bay 21-yard line with 43 seconds remaining in a tied game. The conversion allowed the Lions to drain the clock so that Jordan Love and Co. would not get the ball back after Jake Bates’s game-winning field goal.
Is there another coach in the league who would have made that final fourth-down decision? History says no. The Lions are the first team to go for a fourth down from inside their opponent’s 30-yard line with the score tied in the final minute of regulation since at least 2000. This was the rare occasion when you could find multiple statistical models that would actually have encouraged taking the points and kicking the field goal there. As the Lions offense lined up, and then actually snapped the ball, the Amazon broadcasters were flabbergasted.
“Obviously, he’s got to kick this field goal,” Kirk Herbstreit said.
Nope.
“I just felt like we needed to end it on offense,” Campbell said after the game. “I did not want to give that ball back.
“Everything in me told me, ‘Let’s finish this.’”
The Lions are now 12-1 and have won 11 straight games. They have the best record in the NFL, have clinched a playoff spot with a month remaining in the regular season, and are on track for the best season in franchise history. This is something Campbell has been building toward for four seasons, flipping decades of ineptitude to become a Super Bowl contender. On that trip up, it’s been easy to see some of the chances Campbell has taken as attempts to punch above the Lions’ weight class, or risks that were easier to take when his team didn’t have anything to lose.
But this is not a scrappy upstart team now. The Lions have a clear path to the no. 1 seed in the NFC. They are 4-0 in the NFC North, which might be the best division in the NFL. It’s not uncommon for a coach or a team finally at the top of the mountain to tighten up. To play not to lose rather than to win. But as the Lions head into the stretch run of the regular season, trying to stay ahead of other NFC contenders and prepare for the playoffs, it’s clear that’s not the case.
These are not the same old Lions. But they are coached by the same Dan Campbell.
It’s good that Detroit is not inclined to take its foot off the gas. Though the Lions have been as close to dominant as any team this season, their margin for error in their quest to secure the no. 1 seed and a first-round bye is still relatively slim.
At least in the second half of Thursday’s game, the Packers looked entirely capable of beating Detroit, particularly considering the banged-up state of the Lions defense. That seemed to be a major reason Campbell was so disinclined to give Love another chance with the ball at the end of the game, even for just a few seconds. Still, given the Packers’ 9-4 overall record and 1-3 mark in the division, Green Bay seems firmly in wild-card territory at this point. But the Vikings, at 10-2, still have an outside shot of catching Detroit—for the division title and, potentially, for the top seed.
More importantly, Detroit needed to win on Thursday to keep holding off Philadelphia, the second-hottest team in the conference, who is just a game behind Detroit at 10-2. The Lions can afford one loss in the last month of the year and still be assured the no. 1 seed even if the Birds win out thanks to the strength-of-victory tiebreaker, but Detroit probably can’t drop two games. Philly’s remaining strength of schedule is the 11th easiest in the NFL, while Detroit’s is fifth hardest, starting with the Bills at home next Sunday. As a reminder, one thing the Lions are playing for other than a first-round bye is avoiding having Jared Goff play outdoors in Philadelphia in late January.
These are the kinds of stakes that can make plenty of coaches tense up and just try to hang on through the end of the year. That does not seem to be part of Campbell’s DNA. He’s never veered much from his “aggressive” philosophy, no matter what type of team he’s coaching. This year, the Lions have been well above average on fourth downs; they’ve attempted 22 and converted 15 of them. That ranks them tied for sixth in attempts, fourth in conversions, and eighth in conversion rate.
But since 2021, the Lions’ success rate on fourth-down tries has actually been relatively middling. Detroit has the most fourth-down conversions in the last four years because they’ve attempted the most, but their 55 percent success rate is 13th in the league in that span. On the Lions’ way to the top under Campbell, there have been a lot of these plays that haven’t worked out. But that never stopped him from calling for them more often than any other coach.
Compare this to the Chiefs, the NFL’s other one-loss team. Kansas City has the best fourth-down conversion rate in football since 2021. According to TruMedia, the Chiefs have only gone for them 58 times in that span, compared to Detroit’s 140 attempts. Is being less risk averse and pickier about which fourth downs are worth attempting part of why the Chiefs’ success rate is 10 percentage points higher than Detroit’s? Sure. (Some of it is also, you know, Patrick Mahomes.)
But ask yourself, which team between Detroit and Kansas City seems to have gotten more out of fourth downs over the last four years? Which team’s fans seem happiest with their coaching philosophy toward those high-leverage plays? I get the sense that Lions fans know Campbell’s choices have led to wins, while you’ll probably find some grumbling about Andy Reid’s relative conservatism among Chiefs fans.
The Lions have become a feel-good story in their climb out of the NFL’s basement. Campbell, with his heart-on-his-sleeve demeanor and bold decision-making, has guided them the whole way. They still have to wrap up the season, fend off the Eagles, and see how they’ll fare in the playoffs—no easy task considering the current state of their defense, their remaining schedule, and the still-lingering concerns about their quarterback in the dead of winter. But Thursday night did feel like an apex moment for this Lions club. No team in franchise history has started 12-1, and it’s meaningful that they’ve gotten to this point by playing like themselves. That means going for the fourth downs, taking the chances, and ending with a win and a raucous postgame speech where Campbell stopped midway through to congratulate a lineman for throwing up.
These are not the same old Lions. But they are coached by the same Dan Campbell.
