The Detroit Lions have won three times in their last six games by at least 38 points, leading to some people criticizing their approach to those games. We also know how the Lions feel about that criticism, and it's fair to assume Kerby Joseph and Carlton Davis are not alone in the locker room.
Head coach Dan Campbell explained the decision to keep starters in last Sunday's game against the Jacksonville Jaguars until early in the fourth quarter, when a touchdown pass from Jared Goff to Amon-Ra St. Brown gave the Lions a 49-6 lead. Part of the issue is only being able to dress 46 or 47 players for a game, and the Lions also had just three reserve offensive lineman available for the game against Jacksonville.
During his Tuesday morning appearance on "Costa and Jensen with Heather" on 97.1 The Ticket, Campbell was asked about the thought process when a big lead is in play regarding when to pull starters.
"Well you want to win the game. That's number one," Campbell said. "What you don't want to do is you get in one of those and you're up, and then you decide you're gonna let off the gas and, 'Let's get the starters out,' and then they mount a comeback."
Campbell referenced the Eagles-Jaguars game from Week 9, when Philadelphia led 22-0 almost six minutes into the third quarter before Jacksonville scored 16 points in 14 seconds of game time to narrow the margin of what was eventually a five-point win for the Eagles.
Dan Campbell reinforces reasoning for pulling starters when he does
Campbell continued.
"These things happen, man. And you don't know what's coming down the wire. Yeah, the odds are low but man, you've got to be careful. You sure as hell don't want to be up like that and end up being in a dogfight at the end and something bad happens," Campbell said. "That's one. Two, you want to make sure you end on a good note. You're playing good, efficient football, the guys feel good about it, you're in a rhythm, I think it bleeds into the next week and I think that's important, so we did that."
Campbell reinforced what he said on Monday regarding the fear of injury when it comes to pulling starters early in one-sided wins.
"If you're able to pull them out in the early fourth, great, and we were able to do that," Campbell explained. "But if you're asking me to pull somebody out in the third quarter, or pull somebody out in the second quarter before Anzalone gets hurt, I'm never gonna do that. Ever. "
Three wins the likes of which the Lions have had this season (38 points or more) is literally historic territory, and Campbell noted the uniqueness of it after Sunday's game. There's a time to pull starters from those kind of blowout wins, and for the Lions (and the other 31 teams, presumably) it's the fourth quarter-not before.