Dan Campbell: Lions Have 'Very Correctable Issues'
The Lions are the talk of the NFL right now, after upsetting the reigning Super Bowl champion Chiefs Thursday night.
With the win, the Lions are now 9-2 in their last 11 games (dating back to last season), with the last two wins coming against the Packers at Lambeau Field and the Chiefs at Arrowhead Stadium.
For as impressive of a victory as Thursday’s win was, Detroit – in the eyes of many fans and pundits – did not bring its “A” game to Kansas City.
Among the notable inefficiencies, Lions offensive coordinator Ben Johnson wasn’t ultra effective calling plays, and his unit subsequently struggled to move the football down the field for most of the game. Also, on defense, the Lions, on multiple occasions in the first half, exerted too little pressure and afforded Chiefs two-time MVP passer Patrick Mahomes with too much time and space to make a play with his legs.
Detroit third-year head coach Dan Campbell is well aware of the fact that his team will need to rectify issues on both sides of the ball before its home opener against the Seahawks in Week 2.
“Probably offensively, (the biggest thing to clean up) is the tempo. Man, we’ve got to improve our tempo. That’s probably (at the) top of the list right now and then third down offensively,” Campbell told reporters Friday. “And, we weren’t great on defense either in that first half. Now, we turned it around there, but I think those are a couple things we’ve got to clean up that would be (at the) top of the list here.”
As Campbell noted, the Lions did struggle converting on third down in their season-opening tilt in Kansas City. They went just five-of-15 on the pivotal down, equating to a very mediocre success rate of 33.3 percent.
Campbell is confident that Detroit will take strides in those aforementioned areas as the season progresses.
“They are very correctable issues that we've got here, so that's what fires you up,” the popular NFL head man expressed. "We've got so much room to grow and get better. But, I just know that was – when you said, I guess the first thing I thought of was just tempo offensively. We can be so much better.”
