GREEN BAY, Wis. -- Dan Campbell took the podium with a frustrated, yet calm demeanor, after the Detroit Lions opened the regular season with a 27-13 loss to the Green Bay Packers.
The Lions didn’t score a touchdown until the game’s final minute after failing to reach paydirt on their first three trips inside the red zone. In the first game in the post-Ben Johnson era with John Morton as offensive coordinator, it was a showing most fans were hoping to avoid experiencing out of the gates.
Campbell himself even thought it would look much cleaner than it did with the two new coordinators and new-look interior offensive line.
“We didn’t coach good enough, including me, and then we didn’t play good enough,” Campbell said. “Like I told the team, it’s tough to go in and not play close to your best game. You hate starting the season out with a loss. And as bad as that is, it’s not what it appears to be.
“Like I told them, let’s clean up the tape. We made some critical errors at the worst times possible. You don’t do those; you take those out of the equation, and it looks different. You feel like it would be a totally different scenario. But we did make those critical errors at the worst times. We’re going to learn from it. We’ll clean it up.”
The Lions coach said it’s certainly a “little barometer” of where the Lions are at. But it’s all about learning from those mistakes and coming out better on the other side.
To Campbell’s credit, the Lions have not lost back-to-back regular-season games since Weeks 7 and 8 in the 2022 campaign. With Johnson and the Chicago Bears coming to town next week, they will look to keep that NFL-leading streak alive.
“This is the same thing we ran into with AG and Ben, I mean, in 2022, we started 1-6,” Campbell said. “I think people were asking me to fire Ben. Look, it took us a while to get our feet, to get our bearings. But you learn every time you go through these, and you work together, and you find the right flow. You do it collectively. You do it together.”
Some of the main offseason concerns came to light against the Packers in Week 1, though.
Detroit’s pass rush was non-existent for most of the game. The offense put together some long drives, but failed to score with the game within reach, and the big plays just weren’t coming. The Lions had only one play go longer for 20 yards, with quarterback Jared Goff hitting tight end Sam LaPorta on a play-action look for 32 yards by way of some broken coverage.
With a chance to pull within reach before halftime, the Lions had two drives go for a combined 16 minutes and 56 seconds. They came away with three points despite controlling the ball and appearing to find a groove on those drives.
The first series ended with a field goal after the offense hit a wall inside the red zone. And the second ended with an ugly interception on an attempted pass to Amon-Ra St. Brown.
Goff credited Packers safety Evan Williams for making a great play on the ball. But the Lions quarterback was kicking himself for not putting the ball on St. Brown’s outside shoulder, feeling they had a chance to make a play if he had done that.
And even after all of those missed opportunities and drives ending with a touchdown. The Lions still found themselves with a chance down the stretch.
But Goff was sacked on first down from inside his own 10-yard line, and the drive turned into an operation to avoid taking a safety. The Packers took over in prime field position and added a touchdown to put the game out of reach with 8 minutes to go.
“I thought they had a good plan over there,” Campbell said. “I did. I thought they had a really good plan, but that doesn’t take away from us not doing what we need to do. You know, they had some early answers and we made some adjustments, settled in in the second half and did some things to give us a chance to get back in it. And we just couldn’t just generate enough offensively.
“We’ve got to be better. We’ve got to be more precise in what we do.”
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