THIRD DOWN: PENALTY PROBLEMS
Campbell will never apologize for a win, but he knows there are things the Lions need to clean up during their self-scout of the first four games over the bye week.
There are certainly some things that will jump about Monday’s performance, including the 12 penalties for 101 yards, six of those defensive holding and defensive pass interference.
Rookie cornerback Terrion Arnold got flagged three times in the game, twice for holding and once for interference. He’s been flagged for an interference penalty in all of his first four games in the league.
“Twelve is a lot,” Campbell said after the game about the penalties. “I’ll have to watch the tape, but I can tell you just about every one of them I saw, like Carlton (Davis), Carlton was battling, man. That’s a good receiver he’s on. That guy (DK Metcalf) is a physical receiver, and we needed to be physical. Carlton was physical.
“We played ball, man. I’m not discouraged about that one bit. I’m just not. There’s things we have to clean up. We can’t have this many. We’ll figure out what that is and we’ll keep working one-on-ones and we’ll keep working our craft. No, we can’t survive 12 penalties every game. But I know this, we need to be physical, and we’ll get ourselves through this.”