Charlotte, N.C. – Detroit Lions head coach Dan Campbell said the two biggest things he wanted to see from his football team heading into a primetime matchup vs. Carolina Sunday night were better discipline and effort from all three phases.
“Those two combined going into this game I wanted to see discipline and I wanted to see effort, and I’m going to be anxious to look at the tape and just see what that looked like. Really in all areas,” he said. “It’s not good enough right now. That’s the bottom line. It’s just not good enough.”
Detroit’s defense gave up at least 30 points for a third time in four contests to start the year, and the offense had too many self-inflicted wounds and couldn’t drive the ball late with a chance to come back and win the game. The Lions fell to 2-2 on the season with the 32-26 loss to the Panthers.
Detroit allowed 445 yards of offense and nearly 200 receiving yards (192) to second-year wide receiver Tetairoa McMillan, who finished with 14 receptions and two touchdowns.
The Lions’ secondary continued their early-season struggles, and Campbell lamented the inability to create takeaways in a second loss this season.
“Really, to start the game, we didn’t do well enough in the coverage aspect,” Campbell said. “I thought we handled some of that in the second half, then the run got us. We started bleeding yards there in the second half and that’s the one thing we couldn’t let happen.”