Dan Campbell explains decision to keep starters in blowout win over Jaguars

As expected going in, the Detroit Lions had no trouble with the Jacksonville Jaguars on Sunday. The level of no trouble was not expected, as the Lions blew out their overmatched opponent 52-6 and outgained them 645-170. Even if some people want to find flaw with blowouts, but we know how the Lions' locker room feels about that criticism.

The Lions led 42-6 on Sunday when they scored their final touchdown early in the fourth quarter, as a drive overlapped from the third quarter, when Jared Goff connected with Amon-Ra St. Brown for the second time in the game. Fans were nervous and confused that starters were still in the game at that point, with the significant injury to linebacker Alex Anzalone earlier in the game surely in-mind.

After that score to push the score to 49-6, Lions' starters came out of the game. The Lions have now had three wins by at least 38 points in their last six games. No other team has won a game by more than 37 points this season. Sunday's pattern of pulling starters for most of the fourth quarter followed the pattern from the blowout wins over the Dallas Cowboys in Week 6 and Tennessee Titans in Week 8.

Dan Campbell talks about the challenge of when to pull starters in one-sided games

After the win over the Jaguars, Campbell was asked about how he decides when to pull starters from a one-sided game.

"There’s nothing easy about it", Campbell said. "This is a weird – this is another one of those bizarre things that you’re running into. Normally, this doesn’t happen. It’s just like the third time this has come up this season, which, it’s a good problem to have. There’s a number of things, and I think you want to know that you finish on a good note, you found a rhythm, you keep the rhythm, ‘OK, now the time says, let’s get them out.' What’s hard is, you’re playing pretty good, and then you take this dip, and then it starts to taste bad, ‘OK, now we pull them out, because we don’t want to get anybody hurt.."

"And even there, it’s like, you’d love to get (Penei) Sewell out, but we only have three linemen at the game, and reserves, and you take out your oldest guys, your most veteran guys, or the guys who maybe are dinged up a little bit. You do the best you can with it.”

To Campbell's ending point there. With only three reserve offensive lineman available, Sewell and left guard Graham Glasgow were the only Lions' offensive starters to play every snap on Sunday. It's fair to note that three offensive lineman were healthy scratches, albeit including two rookies (Giovanni Manu, Christian Mahogany) who are not expected to suit up for a game this year.

As Jeremy Reisman of Pride of Detroit pointed out, the decision about when to pull starters in a blowout has roots in NFL teams only being able to dress 46 or 47 players on game days.

After responding to the next question, on a different topic, Campbell circled back to the topic of when to pull starters in a blowout like Sunday's with a final point he wanted to get off his chest.

"I do not want to let the fear of injury take away from our identity,” Campbell said. “The minute you start worrying about injuries, that’s when bad things happen.”

Ultimately, as Campbell said, having to decide when to pull starters from what's going to be a one-sided win is a good (and rare) problem to have. It certainly beats almost any other problems a team can have, which long-tenured Lions' fans know all too well.