No But I Can Lose Again And Again And Again

Jim Schwartz throwing an illegal challenge flag it was not, but Dan Campbell made a questionable coaching decision in his first Thanksgiving game Thursday that helped send the Detroit Lions to another gut-wrenching loss.

Campbell took a v-yard penalty for calling back-to-back timeouts with ane:54 to play afterwards a defensive miscommunication left his secondary vulnerable on a fundamental third-and-9.

The Bears converted on third-and-4 after the penalization, and Cairo Santos made the game-winning 28-one thousand field goal as time expired to give the Chicago Bears a sixteen-14 win over the Lions at Ford Field.

"Obviously you can't do that, but we take miscommunication," Campbell said. "Half of our secondary had i call, one-half had the other and then — yeah, banged a timeout."

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The Lions took a fourteen-13 lead late in the third quarter, merely allowed the Bears (4-7) to end the game with an 18-play, 69-thou bulldoze that ran the final 8 minutes, xxx seconds off the clock.

The Lions stopped David Montgomery on a one-thou run on the kickoff play later on the two-minute warning, then took a timeout with 1:54 left.

They crowded the line of scrimmage with 8 defenders and no deep safety on the next play, then checked to a Encompass two defence, where two safeties were supposed to be a last line of defense.

With players scrambling to go in the right position as Andy Dalton chosen for the snap, both Campbell and defensive coordinator Aaron Glenn started signaling wildly for another timeout.

"Non everyone got it," linebacker Alex Anzalone said. "We were in Cover 0. They went into max pro(tection), so we went to Encompass 2 and non everyone got it and I estimate Dan idea it was better to take the five yards than let up a touchdown. It's really a smart play, smart call on his part."

Dalton threw complete to Damiere Byrd for vii yards on third-and-4 afterwards the penalty, then took three knees before Santos came on for his third field goal of the game.

Campbell lamented missed opportunities afterwards the game — the Lions were penalized ten times for 67 yards — simply stood by his decision.

"It's a telephone call and it'southward got basically a check on it to what they're going to do and what they line upwards in offensively, is what happened," he said. "We had half in one phone call, half in another, so the first thing in my head is, 'Well, we've got a diddled coverage and they're about to score a touchdown,' so I do information technology, which you lot can't do, and at present it'south a penalty. But I know that if he threw information technology out in the flat, that was about to exist a touchdown, so can't do it."

The Lions, 0-10-ane and the only winless team in the NFL, have lost on last-second field goals three times this season. Justin Tucker striking an NFL-tape 66-yarder to give the Baltimore Ravens a 19-17 win over the Lions at Ford Field in Week 3, and Greg Joseph fabricated a career-long 54-yarder to requite the Minnesota Vikings a 19-17 win over the Lions two weeks later.

The Lions have not won a game since Dec. half dozen, 2020, when they beat the Bears in Darrell Bevell'south get-go game as interim caput passenger vehicle. They play their next game Dec. five, confronting the Vikings at Ford Field.

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"It'southward frustrating, and information technology's emotional, 100%," left tackle Taylor Decker said. "All the piece of work that nosotros put into it, beingness competitive with really expert teams, it hurts. It hurts. Simply you don't want to get numb to that and so recollect that yous're non doing it for anything considering and so you're going to be out there and you're going to be hopeless. I know I've said it a million times, I desire to see Detroit exist a winner. God, nosotros've been and so shut, so many games, but close isn't proficient enough, and that's just the fact."

Jared Goff, making his render from a strained oblique, completed 12 straight passes to start the game and finished 21-for-25 for 171 yards with ii touchdowns.

He opened the scoring with a 39-yard touchdown pass to Josh Reynolds, his former teammate with the Los Angeles Rams, on the Lions' first possession, and gave the Lions a 14-13 atomic number 82 late in the 3rd quarter with a 17-yard touchdown pass to T.J. Hockenson.

D'Andre Swift, coming off back-to-back 130-yard rushing games, left with a shoulder injury in the offset half and finished with three carries for zero yards.

The Lions committed penalties on three sequent plays twice Thursday, including one time in the commencement half, when 2 false starts and a holding punishment knocked them out of field goal range and left them in first-and-30 from midfield.

The Bears took a 10-7 lead on the next possession, when Darnell Mooney shell fill-in nickel back Will Harris for a 52-thousand proceeds on first down, and Dalton followed with a 17-g touchdown pass to a wide open Jimmy Graham.

Dalton, starting in place of injured Bears rookie Justin Fields, completed 24 of 39 passes for 317 yards with one touchdown and one interception. Mooney added five catches for 123 yards for the Bears, who entered Thursday last in the NFL in passing crime at 155.viii yards per game.

"You lot have to learn how not to lose and it'southward something that we've had a hard time doing obviously, especially in these shut games," Goff said. "How exercise you take intendance of the football late in the game? How practise y'all brand stops on defense? How do you move the ball efficiently subsequently in the game and not injure yourself? For me, how practice I stay in the pocket and not permit those guys become moved off my spot and permit a property call in that location in some instances? Information technology's little things like that, that the good teams do and do consistently and something we're working towards, something we're on our mode to I believe. But information technology'due south something that we're working towards."

Contact Dave Birkett at dbirkett@freepress.com. Follow him on Twitter @davebirkett.

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Source: https://www.freep.com/story/sports/nfl/lions/2021/11/25/detroit-lions-game-chicago-bears-thanksigiving-dan-campbell/8757303002/

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