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As there were rumors around the Detroit Lions regarding the trade deadline and the moves that could be made, the team would lose against the Minnesota Vikings on Sunday, 27-24, before any changes could take effect. Lions head coach Dan Campbell would have a brutally honest assessment regarding the tough loss, most holding themselves accountable when speaking to the media.
After the contest, Campbell would point the finger at himself, highlighting many areas of the game that were not effective, saying that it falls on the head coach to clean it up. One facet he mentioned was the number of penalties as Detroit recorded 10 in the game that cost the team 76 yards.
“We did everything we needed to do to lose that game,” Campbell said, according to Eric Woodyard of ESPN. “We made every critical area you need to at the right time to lose it, a perfect storm. You know, when you don’t play well in all three phases, that falls on the head coach. That’s me. So I did not have them ready coming out of the bye. You know, we weren’t; we made too many critical errors. Man, some of our discipline and penalties caught up to us. We just, and there were some things we were out of sync. We’d never looked comfortable.”
#Lions HC Dan Campbell blamed himself for today’s “self-induced” loss. “I did not have them ready coming out of the bye,” he said. pic.twitter.com/UoavTwA19m
— Eric Woodyard (@E_Woodyard) November 2, 2025
Looking at the offensive side of the ball, which gets a lot of attention, the Lions’ explosive running back duo of Jahmyr Gibbs and David Montgomery combined for only 65 yards. That is no doubt an eye-sore for the team to look at later, as well as the passing game, though Jared Goff threw for 284 yards and two touchdowns.
“We just didn’t make enough plays, you know. We had multiple opportunities to set ourselves up to have a chance to win that game, and we made none of theM, really,” Campbell said. “So that’s, you know, I’m going to clean some stuff up so…and we will, I will. We did have some guys that played pretty well, but it was just too much.”
“The penalties, you know, the turnovers in inopportune times,” Campbell continued. “Really, really bit us there, you know, defense gets put in us in tough spots. I mean, but again, we expect our defense to get stops, a sudden change. We just did not handle the day well.”
At any rate, Detroit now is at a 5-3 record, looking to bounce back against the Washington Commanders next Sunday.
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