Did Dan Campbell’s fourth-down decisions cost the Lions a Super Bowl berth?

(Editor’s note: This is excerpted from Mike Sando’s Pick Six from Jan. 29, 2024.)

Dan Campbell’s fourth-down decisions cost the Detroit Lions a berth in the Super Bowl … unless they did not do that at all. Put up your dukes and let’s hash it out.

Campbell went for it twice on fourth down and failed when his Lions were in field-goal range, generating all sorts of discussion regarding his strategy after the San Francisco 49ers overcame a 17-point halftime deficit for a 34-31 victory.

The first time, Detroit faced fourth-and-2 from the San Francisco 28-yard line while leading by 14 points with 7:03 left in the third quarter. Instead of trying a 46-yard field goal for a potential 17-point lead, the Lions passed incomplete to Josh Reynolds, who dropped the ball beyond the first-down marker.

The second time, Detroit faced fourth-and-3 from the San Francisco 30 while trailing by three with 7:38 left in the fourth quarter. Instead of trying a 48-yard field goal for a potential tie, the Lions threw incomplete. This time, the pass was not close to being caught.

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Dan Campbell: 'I don't regret' fourth-down decisions

Lions head coach Dan Campbell on his fourth-down decisions: pic.twitter.com/QGwk8n7ojh

— Colton Pouncy (@colton_pouncy) January 29, 2024

After the game, I asked two in-game strategists and a former head coach for their opinions on the decisions. It’s probably a good thing they were not all in the same room. A fired-up exec weighed in by text unsolicited. The coach at one point used the word “ignorant” to describe one strategist’s justification for the decisions.

“I agree with all of Campbell’s calls,” one of the strategists said. “(Kicker Michael) Badgley is a below-average, journeyman kicker and not automatic. (Jake) Moody (of the 49ers) already missed one. (Buffalo’s) Tyler Bass missed last week. Fourth-and-2 to 3 is more than 50 percent make. The second decision is more palatable for a field goal to tie if you have a stud kicker you feel good about. On the first one, Reynolds needs to make that catch.”

That last comment set off the former head coach.

“To say the guy might miss the kick is ridiculous,” the coach said. “The guy might drop the ball, and the ball might get batted, and a defensive lineman might beat a guard and hit the quarterback. Whatever you do, you have to execute. If you decide to kick the field goal, you have to make it. The 49ers’ first field-goal miss was fourth-and-10. Guys have been making or missing field goals forever. But the percentages of kicking the field goal are good.”

The Lions signed Badgley off the practice squad in December after waiving previous kicker Riley Patterson. They didn’t ask Badgley to attempt a kick longer than 41 yards in the final four games of the regular season. He made a 54-yarder in the wild-card game against the Rams (indoors) but entered Sunday 13 of 24 in his career (including playoffs) from 45 to 50 yards, including 8 of 16 outdoors.

A second in-game strategist also sided with Campbell.

“Detroit has a system for what they are doing, they are really disciplined on their yards to go and they have plays that work,” this strategist said. “Take their game against Dallas. They scored on the trick play with the failed-to-report call. Then they had a guy open and had a foul on the second play. On the third play, the guy is going to score again. These two-point tries are all like a proxy for fourth down — you gotta get it.

“They have a more robust process than anyone. I like what Campbell does better than people doing it from the seat of their pants and bullsh—ing their way through the press conference after the game.”

The Lions had Reynolds wide open for a high-percentage play on the first go-for-it. Reynolds dropped the ball. Is that bad process, or simply bad execution?

ESPN’s fourth-down model suggested the Lions’ win probability would improve slightly by going for it in both cases, as these tweets from analytics writer Seth Walder explain.

pic.twitter.com/M8n5RKqtuQ

— Seth Walder (@SethWalder) January 29, 2024

A common response I get to a situation like this: the 0.3% isn’t worth passing up the chance to tie.

The response is that the model is very aware of the score and the *possibility* of tying with a field goal. That is baked in.

If the model’s outputs are the pure truth (I’m… https://t.co/XQkDmC9s4V

— Seth Walder (@SethWalder) January 29, 2024

An executive who considers himself an embracer of analytics saw these narrow margins and texted after the game to suggest Campbell might have cost Detroit a trip to the Super Bowl by stubbornly adhering to his reputation instead of doing what made the most sense Sunday.

“I am clearly well on the side of aggressive fourth-down decisions 95 percent of the time,” this exec texted. “But when the analytics are talking about 0.2 percent gains, to me that says other factors can override them. But my perception was Campbell simply says to himself, ‘We go for it on fourth down, that’s who we are.’ Sadly, there were other factors that should have controlled the decision.”

The exec also challenged the in-game strategist’s contention that Detroit’s offensive coordinator, Ben Johnson, might give the Lions an edge in these fourth-down situations through superior play calling.

Before Sunday, the Lions had gone for it an NFL-high 23 times on fourth down with 2-3 yards to go over the last two seasons (including playoffs). They had converted 70 percent of the time (16 of 23), well above the 52 percent average for the rest of the league. That supports the idea that Detroit could have an edge in these situations.

Badgley’s shaky record as a kicker also could factor. The Lions also would have evaluated Badgley in warmups to get a feel for how he might perform. The make rate from 45-50 yards at Levi’s Stadium was 73 percent over the past five seasons, the same as the average for all stadiums, but the Lions are a dome team, which could affect their thinking outdoors in a late-afternoon game played in wet conditions.

If Reynolds catches the pass on the first one, Detroit probably doesn’t even encounter the second fourth-down decision later in the half. In that case, critics blasting Campbell as an undue taker of risks might be lauding him as the coach whose unwavering belief in his players sent Detroit to its first Super Bowl and would be critical to the team upsetting Kansas City. We can talk all we want about process, but as Campbell knows, the NFL is a results-oriented business, and the results were not on his side Sunday.

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What happened to the Lions' offense in the second half of loss to 49ers?

(Photo: Cooper Neill / Getty Images)