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The Detroit Lions visited the Kansas City Chiefs on Sunday night in a huge game. The Chiefs won the game against the Lions, 30-17, and returned to .500, while the Lions fell to 4-2 and lost for the first time since Week 1 against the Packers. Lions head coach Dan Campbell is unafraid to do anything to win, and he proved that once again against the Chiefs, despite a costly penalty.
In the game, the Lions appeared to score a touchdown on a trick play from David Montgomery, who threw a pass to Jared Goff. However, the score was wiped off due to an illegal motion penalty. Dan Campbell said he did not want to dive too deep into it because it upset him, but he took full responsibility for the play’s failure.
“I don’t even want to talk about it,” Campbell said. “I don’t. I’m sorry. It’s a real sore spot. I told the team I take full responsibility for that. I do. The players did exactly what we told them to do. Goff did exactly what we told him to do. David did, too. And I’ll take that. You’ve got to clarify where you are, and I did not do that. I told them I take responsibility for that.”
Goff initially lined up under center on the play and then motioned to the left sideline before a direct snap to Montgomery. Montgomery hit him with the pass, but the flag was thrown because league rules say Goff must stop and reset himself before the snap when he begins the play under center. Despite that ruling, fans went wild over the verdict.
Under Campbell, the Lions love to dig deep into their bag of tricks, and it does not matter who the coordinators are. Much attention was paid to Ben Johnson because of how well the Lions ran their offense, but that attitude extends down from Dan Campbell, the head coach.
This is not the first time the Lions have been penalized for a trick play under Campbell. The most notable was against the Cowboys two seasons ago, when a game-winning two-point conversion attempt that was a pass to an offensive lineman was overturned because the referees reported that the wrong lineman was eligible, saying that Dan Skipper was eligible when it should have gone to Taylor Decker.
This is nothing new for the Lions, but they need to be more detail-oriented if they want these trick plays to work more often, as Dan Campbell will likely attempt more.
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