In the final minute of the Detroit Lions matchup against the Green Bay Packers on Thursday Night Football last week, the Lions faced 4th-and-inches in Packers' territory with the game tied at 31. Instead of kicking a field goal, the Lions decided to go for the fourth down in typical Dan Campbell fashion.
The Lions converted the fourth down on a run by David Montgomery, allowing Detroit to run down the clock and kick the game-winning field goal in the final seconds of the game. The Packers would not get the ball back, and helped the Lions secure another critical division win in a tight NFC North race.
Days after the Lions completed the sweep over the Packers, former NFL cornerback and Prime Video TNF analyst Richard Sherman said that it was actually Goff, not Campbell, who said the Lions should go for that fourth down.
"Jared basically comes over and Dan's on the headset telling him, 'Hey we're kicking it' and Jared, you know, dejected, is like 'Man, I wanted to go.' And Dan Campbell just looks at him and said, 'You want to do it, eff it we're going for it.' And then he changes his mind and goes for it," Sherman said on theRichard Sherman Podcast.
Jared Goff asked to go for it on the gutsy 4th down 😳 (via @RShermanPodcast) pic.twitter.com/2LlG1CeXiE
— NFL (@NFL) December 10, 2024
Goff has since refuted what Sherman said, and confirmed that it was in fact Campbell who decided to go for the fourth down.
"I think someone said that I had convinced him to do it," Goff said Tuesday on 97.1 The Ticket. "I’m like, no, I didn’t do any convincing with him. He does that all on his own and we’re fired up when he does it. It had nothing to do with me. I walked over there, asked him what the plan was, he was deliberating it and told us we were gonna go for it."
It's not surprising to hear it was actually Campbell who decided to go for the fourth down. Campbell is one of the most aggressive coaches when it comes to going for fourth downs, and has yet to back down from that aggressive mentality since becoming the Lions head coach in 2021.
As Goff noted, Campbell's willingness to go for fourth downs has primarily benefitted the team, and has helped create the winning culture that this Lions team has established. Though Campbell faced criticism from some analysts for what turned out to be a successful decision, his mentality is part of what turned the Lions from a long-suffering franchise into one that has legitimate Super Bowl hopes.