It's About Belief, Silly
Dan Campbell's bold in-game decision making has nothing to do with math.
Dan Campbell’s Detroit Lions went for it on five fourth downs during the team’s early-December matchup against the Green Bay Packers. It was the final one – the boldest call he made all night, and possibly over his entire career – that sparked the most conversation.
With 43 seconds to go, and the Lions well into Jake Bates’ field goal range, Detroit faced a 4th-and-1 at the Packers’ 21-yard line. The game was tied at 31, so the team could have easily kicked a 39-yard field goal, and then just had to defend for around 40 seconds to secure the win.
Kicking was the obvious decision. It’s the decision that most coaches would make. It’s the decision that even the analytics robots, whose logic can rarely be debated, said they would make.
Campbell didn’t care. He kept his offense on the field, and running back David Montgomery converted, and then some, with a seven-yard run.
Despite the success of Campbell’s gambit, the morning talk shows spent much of Friday howling about his recklessness. It would cost the team down the line, they said. He wouldn’t be able to get away with this again, they asserted. While Campbell got away with it this time, he was too reckless to trust as a coach who could lead his team to the Super Bowl.
Analytics types were even puzzled. While they often praise Campbell for his willingness to go for it on fourth down compared to other coaches – a vast majority of coaches are very conservative so Campbell’s aggressive streak naturally puts him in tune with the spreadsheets – this decision didn’t make sense. He was too aggressive for even the most aggressive of analysts.
But the confusion over Campbell’s decision comes from a miscasting of who he actually is as a coach and why he makes the bold in-game choices he does. Many analysts were surprised that Campbell, a raucous head coach that shoots from his hip and disregards typical coach speak, happened to be the guy most attuned to their style of football.
Campbell must be a nerd at heart, despite the kneecap biting, many figured. The rah-rah locker room stuff was for team bonding and branding. At heart, he cared a lot for what the numbers say.
I do not think that’s the case, however. Campbell isn’t consulting the spreadsheets when he makes bold calls. He’s sending a message. When he runs a fake punt, lets his defensive coordinator play his undermanned secondary in man-coverage all game against one of the NFL’s best receiving corps, or throws an ill-advised challenge flag, he’s telling something to his team.
It’s not about optimal decision-making, it’s about belief.
“I believed we could convert. I trust the O-line,” he told reporters about the fourth down call after the Packers game.
“I trust David.”
Football is an absolutely insane sport. One hundred guys don gladiator armor and spend three hours bashing into each other at high speeds. It destroys the body. Some players report not being able to walk or run properly after playing. Receivers leave the game with mangled hands. Players drop like flies, with every NFL player having to semi-regularly watch one of his teammates and friends suffer a severe injury. Gridiron football players have lower healthspans than the average person, despite their relative wealth.
And then there’s the head trauma—the unseen but ever-present danger that affects players long after they leave the field.
Players aren’t dumb. They know all of this stuff. And yet they still play. Whether for the love of the game, or a belief it’s their only ticket out of a bad situation, they carry on.
But the brutality of the game makes it a uniquely emotional sport. You have to convince guys to put it all out there and take a beating every snap, just to get up and do it again 40 seconds later. The pregame hype speeches, the pageantry, the impact of the crowd. They play more into football than any other sport. It’s a war between the hashes, two groups of men literally beating each other bloody for inches of territory.
In the military, a good lieutenant not only leads his platoon, but builds them. Makes them believe in themselves or each other. Creates a unit that will put it all on the line for one another.
While playing football is not quite storming the beaches of Normandy, the morale and performance of a unit is more top-down on the gridiron than it is in any other sport.
The Lions defense was largely made up of backups and practice squaders for that early December Packers game. They should have been outmatched against a talented Packers offense. Detroit’s defense was not perfect, giving up 31 points, but stayed in the game, and didn’t break down after taking repeated punches from Green Bay. It wasn’t perfect, but it was miraculously enough to win.
Motivation has been the name of the game for Campbell since he first arrived, even using his introductory media presser to set the tone in the locker room. When evaluating his in-game decisions, it’s better to look at them less like math equations on a spreadsheet, and more as a move that will instill belief in his team the most.
The Lions offense was on the move midway through the fourth quarter of the NFC Championship Game. A big pass from Jared Goff to Jameson Williams, followed by an explosive Montgomery run, had brought them to the edge of field goal range in just two plays.
Then the drive stalled out. Detroit faced a 4th-and-3 at the San Francisco 49ers 30-yard line. Detroit trailed 27-24 in a game they had led 24-7 at one point. A calamitous third quarter, which included a Josh Reynolds drop on a fourth down and a Jahmyr Gibbs fumble one play into the following drive, saw the lead quickly evaporate. Detroit played their way into Michael Badgley’s field goal range, however, and now had a chance to knot up the game with seven minutes to play.
Campbell kept the offense on the field, though. It is a move that would be questioned for months after, as Goff would fail to find Amon Ra St. Brown and the Lions would go on to lose the game 34-31.
After the game, the head coach was honest with the team. Telling them he wasn’t sure if they would ever be back. Consistency is tough in the NFL, and with a sport as brutal as football, there is always a chance that the injuries pile up and the stars don’t align next year. You have to grasp the opportunities as they come. If you don’t, they may never appear again.
I keep going back to Campbell’s words after last year’s NFC Championship game when thinking about his decisions this year. There are only so many chances to grasp, and any time you pass up on one you are sending a message to your team. You don’t believe in them.
When you roll out the punt team on 4th-and-inches you are implicitly saying you don’t think they can get a couple of inches. If Campbell elected to punt on those drives against the 49ers, instead of letting one of the NFL’s best offenses continue its great work, it would send a poor message to them.
And belief is a powerful tool in the NFL. It can even help you turn around a franchise.