Dan Campbell postgame media availability | 2025 NFL Regular Season Week 15: Lions at Rams

Dan Campbell postgame media availability | 2025 NFL Regular Season Week 15: Lions at Rams

All right. Uh third quarter was was rough on us. You know, uh they got a jump on us that we couldn’t overcome. Um you know, Nua had a huge day. We couldn’t couldn’t slow him down. Um you know, Stafford played played at a really high level, which uh we knew we would if we we couldn’t disrupt him, and more importantly, stop the run. We weren’t able to do that. Uh you know, they they uh were able to break through there and and grind it out, which made it very difficult on us. Uh and then you know we left three out there uh on the field goal and uh and then we didn’t you know we could have scored touchdowns man you get in a game like that knew we were going to need some points and uh we weren’t we weren’t able to uh to get enough there in third quarter we got to be able to stop the bleeding offensively and uh we weren’t we never got our run game going. Um you know I thought golf I thought Saint and J Mo played their tails off man. I I thought they were uh played at a really high level gave us a chance. Uh but we just weren’t able to overcome, you know, some of those things, you know, and uh we knew that team didn’t make mistakes. Um and and so it cost us, you know, we we just weren’t we couldn’t do enough. What’s your message to the team? Obviously looking at every game matters. Well, look, I don’t even know what happened. I mean, I just found out after the game about Green Bay and all that. So, you know, my my message is don’t go numb to to when you get these losses, you know, the win, lose, win, lose. like we we got to get out of that rut and it can’t be okay. Well, well, we’ll just like it should it should burn at you, you know? It should eat you up and do not go numb to the losing. All right. Uh staff and I we’re going to come in. We’re going to watch this thing together tomorrow. All of us in all three phases. Uh watch everything top down, the players, ourselves. Um you know, and make those corrections and then move on. And and and it’s simple as going back to work. And we got to get better with Pittsburgh coming into town. we got to play better. And and now we know, you know, now you have firsthand knowledge of what you know what probably the top of the NFC looks like right now. That’s that’s them, you know. Um and so now you know you know what it looks like. You know what it is and we’re not there right now. Doesn’t mean we can’t be, but now we know what it looks like. And uh you got to get better. We got to get better. We got to move on. Can’t sulk about it. Can’t feel sorry for ourselves. Um, we make the corrections and we move on. Sorry about that. What did happen in the third quart kind of looking reassess? Really, we couldn’t we couldn’t I think more more than anything we really just couldn’t get our run game going. That was going to be important and that that one hurt us. You know, we got a holding call which made it difficult. Um, you know, some of those you’re just trying to get in third and five, you know, and we were in third and 10, third and long. Uh, you know, trying to run the ball, you know, you get two yards and it just makes it difficult. Um, we weren’t over to, you know, able to overcome that. You know, you can go back, well, maybe I should have just thrown it and quit trying to do some of those or, you know, you go back and forth. Um, that’ll be things that I look at myself as to, man, could I have done this? Should I have done this better to help these guys out? Um but but the bottom line is we we weren’t able to convert and so then we strung the defense out and and then all of a sudden it flips. You’re up 10, you’re down 10. And uh it was it was that was a rough quarter for us. Speaking of the defense, 41 points, 519 total yards that coming off a really good performance last week. Is the frustrating part been maybe just some of the inconsistencies on on defense? One great performance, one not another one come back kind of like just what you what you wins and losses too. Yeah, that’s it’s frustrating. Yeah, it’s frustrating, but it’s also because we’re better than that. I know we’re better than that, you know. And look, I knew we were going to need to score some points. That’s a good team. It’s a good offense, good quarterback. It’s all of it. You know, they got weapons. This 12’s a hell of a player, man. Uh but but we’re better than 41 points, you know. Now, it’s on the scoreboard. That team over there earned it. They put it up there, you know, so can’t take that away from them. But, uh there’s just little things, you know, some of the things fitting the run. We didn’t do it good enough on the perimeter. Uh, you know, everybody had a hand in that and then, you know, once they’re able to run the ball with with what they’ve got, it just makes it extremely difficult. Extremely difficult. What the decision to uh not attempt an outside kick at the end of the game when they were running the ball as well as they were. Yeah, I I don’t know. I don’t have an answer for you right now. Can you explain? I just felt like, you know, two timeouts in a two-minute. Go ahead. Just can you explain the challenge that you weren’t able to challenge an accused time out? What you were told there and what led to that first half? Uh they said I cannot challenge that because it’s not line the game but it was you know it was wrong. So um which they corrected. So I won the challenge but I lost my timeout. the uh the touchdown that was uh called a touchdown on the field and review. What was the explanation they gave? The call stands. They said it enough to the ground. We said the call stands. Dan, for for three quarters, you only had three players who were targeted for catches. Um do you feel you had enough variety in your play calling or were you kind of hamstrung by not be able to get the run game going as well? Well, when you can’t get the run going, it it does it it limits what you can do and what you’re trying to do off of it. I don’t regret one bit getting the ball to to St. Brown and JO. I have zero regrets about that. Um, but we got to get the run game going. You know, we got to be better and we can be better. Maybe just the the decision to go for it on on the 29 there, you know, big call at that point in the game. God led to a touchdown and then you getting that lead. just just had felt like that was a time to do it. Yeah, I just I I felt really good about it, you know. I knew we’d get it. I felt very confident about it and uh I knew the players would execute. Um and it just I I felt like we would have the right look and it it worked out, you know, if it doesn’t then yeah, I’m in trouble, right? So that’s the it’s a story of every week. What you said at the beginning about you know, you can’t be numb to this. What is the locker room sort of, you know, they’ve had so much success the last couple years? Yeah. Well, look, I think they’re they’re like anybody else. They’re frustrated. They don’t like losing. I mean, these guys, you know, that’s they don’t. But but I go back to this. The core of this group are, man, they’re the right guys, you know, and they’ve been through this. I mean, most of those guys know what the dumps looks like, and we’re not in the dumps, but they know what that was like, you know, backto back to back to backto back losses, and you don’t ever want to even get a taste of that again. And uh so it’s just important that that nobody gets that way or particularly young guys because they don’t know. Some of these guys don’t know any different. Rookies, secondyear players, especially if all you’ve done is won. Um you just don’t want them to to ever get into that mode of well you you’re just playing for the next week. You know, you’re just kind of playing and you’re going through it. You’re just trying to make your own way. And you can’t, man. this thing has got to burn at you and you you have to have urgency to to correct your errors and we do collectively as a team. So have to go three and 0 to to finish here to to make the playoffs. Just what’s the number one things that gives you confidence that this team can I think I just Yeah, I just mentioned it, man. the guys on this team. I believe in the guys on this team, the the character of the players on this team, our captains, the core of it, and uh there again, we we we needed to play a close to perfect game. We were not ma able to play perfect enough. All right. Um we made too many errors against that team, which some other teams we we would have been enough. It’s not against that team. So, um but I know we can do it. I mean, the these players know we can do it. You go back to work, man. You know, I I don’t believe for one second anybody’s lost confidence. We just know we’re doing a good job taking care of the ball. We’re getting some takeaways. We need to get a couple more. Um, and then we got to play for three quarters, man. We got to play high level. Excuse me. Four quarters, but instead of that third quarter that was a stinker, we we got to do it uh, you know, for four. So, we got three to go here. And you know, we don’t control our own destiny, but but we need to win these three. And it starts with Pittsburgh at home.

Hear from Detroit Lions head coach Dan Campbell following the Detroit Lions game against the Los Angeles Rams during Week 15 of the 2025 NFL season.

Subscribe to the Lions YT Channel: https://bit.ly/2OABzdx
More Lions NFL Action: https://bit.ly/3epKf5l

#DetroitLions #Lions #NFL

Keep up-to-date on all things Lions:
Visit https://www.detroitlions.com/
Follow: https://twitter.com/Lions
Follow: https://www.instagram.com/detroitlionsnfl/
Like: https://www.facebook.com/DetroitLions