LIONS HEAD COACH DAN CAMPBELL POST-GAME QUOTE SHEET
Opening Statement: “Okay, that was tough to say the least. Hey, those guys came back and played well
the second half and stayed to their game plan, what they did and we didn’t overcome it. We were pretty
good in the first half, offensively, and in the second half we stalled out. You know, penalties and drops,
and defensively we couldn’t stop those receivers and (Dolphins QB) Tua (Tagovailoa).”
On his plan for Dolphins WRs Tyreek Hill and Jaylen Waddle coming into this game and how they were
still able to dominate: “Yeah we didn’t hit them. We didn’t hit them at the line. That was part of the
game plan. We didn’t disrupt. We did not disrupt, and when you let them do that and get into your
defense, we didn’t want to turn it into a track meet. And it was a track meet. Shoot man, (they) were
what? 300 yards of offense? I don’t know, somewhere in there, a little over 300. It’s tough.”
On if the defense took a step back from how they performed today compared to last week in Dallas:
“Yeah, I don’t – here’s what I’d say, we did not do well in this game plan that was designed for these
guys. It was – I think you have to – there’s a certain way you have to play them, and look, they want to
keep you in base defense. They want to see if they can funnel out your SAM linebacker and get him in
space, so that was part of the plan, stay in more of a nickel-type package with (Lions CB) Will Harris. And
so, it’s something we’d work all week. We were trying to take away these bend throws on speed, and
layer over the top. Let (Lions S) Kerby (Joseph) spy a little bit, and we just – we didn’t handle it well. We
didn’t. So, they didn’t do anything. I mean, they did exactly what we knew they would do. They just did
it. Did it over and over and had their way.”
On if the defense taking a step back was because the players did not execute or if it was because of
Lions Defensive Coordinator Aaron Glenn’s game plan: “Yeah, it’s all of us. It’s all of us. When this is the
result, it’s on every one of us, including myself.”
On if the penalties in the second half stalled the offense: “Well I feel like, really, all three of those
possessions in the second half, I didn’t feel like – look, give them their credit. They won that game, but
those three possessions I didn’t feel like they did anything defensively that took us out of what we were
doing. I mean false start, false start, false start, drop, drop – that had nothing to do with them. That’s on
us, so that’s self-inflicted wounds. We took ourselves out of our own rhythm, and when we really
needed it, we needed to get that going. It was too little, too late.”
On the play-call to go deep on 4th-and-2 on the final offensive play and if it was a bad play in
hindsight: “No. No, you just want to make the connection between the two, that’s all.”
On if going deep was the intent of the play call: “He’s got answers low and high, and it’s just take the
best look. Take your best matchup. It’s got answers for everything.”
On the significance of the drop by WR Josh Reynolds at the end of the first half before the Lions took a
field goal: “Yeah, I mean, it’s like we say every week, every play is significant. You just don’t know which
one it is, and it turns out that that was significant. It turns out at the end of the game, that was
significant. It turns out the false starts in the third quarter were significant. It turns out not getting off
the field on third down on any one of those was significant, so it’s which play? It just takes one, and until
we handle the pressure better or we can get ourselves out of a funk once we hit one, we’ve got to
balance ourselves back out. If one area’s not quite getting it done, the other area has to pick it up and
hold the line until the other unit gets going again, and we’re not doing a good job of that.”
On giving up 300 yards of offense to the Dolphins in the first half: “Speed. Speed. We didn’t handle
their speed well. We didn’t’ get under those windows. (Dolphins QB) Tua (Tagovailoa) did a good job of
playing with rhythm, getting it out of his hands, and there was – fine, he would ‘up’ and then kind of
‘pop,’ and then find the second window. We just did not – a lot of it is why you have to try to disrupt
these guys, whether they’re on the line and some of that fast motion. If you’re a flat player, you’ve got
to try to hit them a little bit because if you allow them into the defense, we’ve got problems, and they’re
too fast. We just didn’t handle it well top to bottom.”
On the offense struggling in the second half after a strong first half: “Penalties. Penalties.”
On where CB Jerry Jacobs fits in the lineup going forward: “Oh yeah, we’re going to be looking at Jerry.
We’ll be looking at everybody. We’ll be looking at everybody. We want to make sure Jerry is ready to go
and then let him compete and see where he is. We still feel like last week was a step in getting him –
continuing to get his confidence back, getting his legs under him, and that started with (special) teams
and he got a little bit more in this department. And once we feel like, OK, he’s right, he can take the
load, and he competitively is better than one of the other guys, then he’s going to get his chance.”
On the team’s 1-6 record and struggling to play complementary football each week: “My thought is as
frustrating as it is, I know how close we are because we are still talking about one play. And the hard
thing is to just keep doing your job and staying in the thick of the storm, and the easy thing is to go
down below and get under the blanket, eat all the food and whatever. Guys who are going on the deck
and just continue to do their part because they know the sun’s coming, those are the guys we’re looking
for. So that’s how I choose to think of this. The only way to clean up everything is to go back to work,
that’s just – that’s all I know. So, we go back to work because if we don’t, we have no chance of being in
any of these games. So let’s get back into it. We had a chance to win that game, and once we get that
chance, let’s see if we can handle the pressure better and not shoot ourselves in the foot.”
On repeating that the team has been close is so many games: “Two years. Two years. You keep going.
That’s how you do it. You keep going. You keep going. You deliver another message, a different
message. You change a couple of things up.”
On Lions RB D’Andre Swift having limited touches today: “Yeah, we were just trying to see where Swift
was at. Certainly, he’s not 100-percent, but we got a few plays out of him.”
On if Swift can be 100-percent this season: “Yeah, I mean, we hope, but we’ll take it as it comes. It was
good to – look, at least we got him out there moving around. It’s better than him not being at the game.
And let’s see if we can – how he came out of this game and hopefully he’ll be a little bit better next
week and maybe a little bit better the week after.”
On the inability to stop the Dolphins on third down: “Yeah, we teetered between pressure and then
coverage, and the times we pressured, he got it out. One of them, he just – boy, he just let it go, and he
let it go fast, and said, ‘Go get it.’ And really, (Lions CB) A.J. (Parker) was in pretty good coverage. That’s
just – man, that’s a trust throw, and hit your back foot and just let it go. And let a guy who’s got a ton of
speed go get it, go get under it. There again, we didn’t handle their speed well. We just didn’t.”
On the players handling the pressure better: “Yeah, I mean, overall. Man, here we are. They’re
mounting a comeback on us. They just scored right out of halftime. Okay, offense, time to answer back,
and if we just – we’re not handling those things well.”
On if the team not handling pressure well is on the players or coaches: “Yeah, I think it’s allencompassing. Bill Parcells just used to say, ‘The only way to win close games is win close games.’ So,
like, we’ve got to find a way to win a close game when we’re actually playing in close games, and that’s
how you build confidence to do it. And until then, you’ve got to do all the little things right. So I think it’s
all encompassing. Hey, it’s frustrating, but I know everybody’s tired of hearing it’s close, but I do know
we’re close, and you just don’t know when it’s going to turn. But if we don’t keep swinging away at it,
it’ll only get worse.”
On worrying about what these high-scoring games do to the defense’s mental state and confidence
long-term: “Yeah, I think we have no choice. I think they’ve got to go, and they’ve got to learn and
they’ve got to grow. And they’ve got to understand, that’s what this league’s about, and look, the best
way to learn is to take your lumps. It’s some of the best learning you can get, and so, we’ll take some of
those, but as long as they continue to grow and don’t make the same mistakes twice, you can – it’s still
frustrating, but at least you know they’re growing.”
LIONS QB JARED GOFF POST-GAME QUOTE SHEET
On the biggest difference between the first and second half of today’s game: “I don’t know how many
drives we had in the first half, but we only had three in the second half and the two we kind of killed
ourselves with penalties. Kind of put us behind the eight-ball situation there and that last drive was the
drive to win the game and we didn’t finish it.”
On his decision to target Lions WR Josh Reynolds on the final offensive play on fourth down: “Yeah,
they showed me their cover zero stuff. We checked it, they bailed out. And that’s kind of my only option
on that play once (Lions WR Amon-Ra) St. Brown was covered. Wish I would have thrown a better ball,
thought I left it outside maybe had a chance there. They called a good coverage and we had a one-onone shot down the field and we just didn’t connect.”
On if he was on the same page with Lions WR Josh Reynolds on that final offensive play: “No, we were
on the same page there. Yeah, just the ball.”
On opening up the playbook and taking more shots down the field: “Yeah it is important. I think (Lions
WR) Kalif (Raymond) gives us something that not a lot of teams have with his speed and we tried to take
advantage of it today. I thought we did, I had him on the deep one, hit him early in the first quarter
across the middle. But still, there’s a couple out there you would like to have back that you think you
could keep doing that.”
On the difference between the first and second half of the game: “Yeah, we just didn’t have that many
drives and the three drives we did two of them we killed ourselves with penalties. The last drive there
was to win the game and we were moving the ball and we got stopped on fourth down.”
On how difficult it is for leaders of the team to keep players locked in despite the frustration from
losing: “Yeah, it’s hard, it’s hard. But it’s who we are, it’s what we’re made of, it’s how we’re built. The
guys that can handle will rise to the occasion and the guys that can’t won’t. But I’m pretty sure I know
who’s in that locker room and how we will handle ourselves coming this week on Wednesday and for
the rest of the season.”
On if there is one play looking back at the game that could have made a difference in winning the
game: “I don’t know if that’s fair, one play. Because there’s so many, right? Like I know it’s easy to look
from the outside and say it’s one play – it’s this, if we do this, if we do that. But you look at the ones we
did make and you can point at those. It’s hard to point at that. Sure, in this game you can look at the end
of half, you can look at the last play we had offensively if we connect on those maybe it changes things.
But we also had a lot of plays that we did connect on that did change things in our way in some ways.
So, I think that’s hard. We would still would love to connect on both of those and be in the end zone and
they help.”
On the mental strain of continually coming up short in close games: “Yeah, it’s hard, it’s really hard. It’s
really hard. You know typically all these games are going to be one score, right? And the teams that have
the good records are on the right side of that and the teams that don’t aren’t. And we have been on the
wrong side of it a handful of times now. It’s hard, but you know at some point it’s going to flip if you
keep doing things the right way. And that’s the only thing we can do, keep trying to do things the right
way and keep putting our best foot forward and trusting everyone around us and doing our jobs to the
best of our ability.”
On if the offense’s confidence felt a boost from scoring multiple touchdowns in today’s game: “Yeah
that felt much more like ourselves, right. What we’re kind of used to and I think those first three drives,
yeah, we scored a touchdown those first three drives. I think we scored a touchdown or field goal on our
first five drives and then nothing from there. But yeah that felt more like ourselves and how do we
continue doing it in the second half, how do we come out in the second half and keep our foot on the
gas per se. And not shoot ourselves in the foot.”
On if this is an example of getting back to work that Lions Head Coach Dan Campbell emphasizes:
“Certainly, yeah, I think so. I think we know what we are capable of on offense and we scored 27 in the
first half and how do we make that to 40 in the second half or whatever it needs to be. I think our
defense was doing a pretty good job and we need to find a way to score one more touchdown and it
may be a different game. Maybe it’s two more touchdowns, whatever that may be. We’ve got to find a
way, but yes, I think to answer your question. We did go back to work, and we solved some problems
and came out much better offensively.”
On if the second-half start affected the offense’s state of mind and created unnecessary urgency:
“Yeah, I think the second drive is the one where you have to show that it didn’t affect you, right? And
the first drive, that can happen. There’s teams that have four, five, six wins right now that that happens
to them too at times. You just get in a little rut, but it’s like you said. How do you put that away? OK,
move forward, that’s not who we are and move forward and flush it, and unfortunately, we didn’t, but
that is a problem to solve is how do we put that away and move forward on the next drive.”
On if he thinks about what Lions WR Jameson Williams can provide for the offense after seeing similar
speedy players in Dolphins WRs Jaylen Waddle and Tyreek Hill: “Sure, yeah man, he’s a young guy
who’s coming along and can’t wait to get him on the field, but yeah, from everything that we’ve seen,
he’s going to be very helpful and give us a dynamic to our offense that would certainly help.”
LIONS T TAYLOR DECKER POST-GAME QUOTE SHEET
On his relationship with his teammates: “Yeah, we definitely love each other. Especially I can speak to
the O-line, obviously we spend all of our time together. I love those guys. They’re my brothers. They’re
going to be my friends for life. When you go into battle and you do a bunch of hard stuff with guys,
you’re just going to be closer. We have a really deep bond. I just want to help my group and help this
team to win some games because at that point, that’d be really fun to do with people you love.”
On how he describes what it feels like to continuously lose close games: “It’s exhausting, but there’s
nothing I can do other than go back to work. There’s nothing this team can do other than go to practice
Wednesday with a good attitude and try to get this thing right. When there are opportunities, we have
to capitalize on them. There’s no other way to put it. It sucks, but like I said, there’s no alternative to
how we’re approaching it.”
On why the team has not been able to close out close games: “I think when we get those
opportunities, we have to not press to try to make a play. We literally just have to do our jobs like we
did in the first half, and everything takes care of itself, everything is smooth. You don’t want guys that
are too amped up to try to do something extra because usually when you try to do something extra is
when bad stuff happens. They just want us to go out there and do our job, and God we have so many
good pieces. We have so many good guys in this locker room. We just do, we have enough. We just have
to play a complete game. We have to play for 60.”
LIONS CB WILL HARRIS POST-GAME QUOTE SHEET
On the defense’s execution against the Dolphins’ speedy wide receivers today: “Yeah, that was
definitely a thing, us trying to get our hands on them and limit their speed down the field. Yeah, we’ve
just got to be better all-around and execute as much as possible. That’s all it goes down to. Because, at
the end of the day we’re out there competing. We’re out there fighting, but we just need a little more
execution around the board especially from myself, from everybody. Everyone can get one percent
better and that’s what we’re going to do. That’s what everybody told me in this locker room.”
On taking on a different role in the defense against the Dolphins: “Yeah, a few different variations of
nickel. Pretty much just trying to be as physical as possible in the box, outside the box in coverage. Just
trying to do what I’m not explaining, just try to just stay true to my keys, my leverages, and really just
trying to stick the gameplan, man. Just try to be as physical as possible, make as many plays as possible for
this team.”
On how the Lions will attack the rest of the season despite the record: “One, because it’s our job. This
is what a lot of these guys signed up to do their whole life. And this isn’t a game to a lot of the guys in
here. This is more than a game. Sure the game is fun. We play Sundays, we like to call it the players’ day.
Sunday is the most fun day of the week, right? We get to come out here and compete, but at the same
time this is a way of life for us, and for us to look at it any differently – I think every guy to a man in here
is in here seeing it that way. This is a way of life for us. There is no other option to either take a step
back or doubt yourself. There’s never a time for that as a competitor.”
LIONS S KERBY JOSEPH POST-GAME QUOTE SHEET
On why the defense came up short today: “I just think we’ve got to do more. We’ve got to take the ball
away more, just coming in as a defense.”
On what he saw before he forced a fumble today: “He was coming into my area. You pay the price if
you come into my area. I’ve seen him do it on film. I recognized it and just went to go make a play.”
On what forcing a turnover in consecutive weeks does for his confidence: “You catch the ball, you’ve
got to pay the price. You feel me? I can feel that out here, especially if you come to me. I’ve just got to
keep making plays.”
LIONS CB JEFF OKUDAH POST-GAME QUOTE SHEET
On his level of fatigue with hearing that the team is close to winning games every week: “Obviously,
it’s tough to always be close. We eventually want to get over the hump. I’m optimistic always. We’re
going to keep approaching the week the same way.”
On the Dolphins’ offensive success on third down today: “I’d have to go back and watch the film to
answer that question correctly.”
On the defense’s struggles on third down this season: “Probably just have to go back and watch the
film so I can give you the most specific answer because I haven’t seen it. I don’t know. I don’t remember
all the plays and how they won those eight reps.”
On Dolphins QB Tua Tagovailoa’s quick release: “He gets the ball out fast but coming into the game we
knew that, so I don’t think it was an element of surprise that he was able to do that.”
LIONS RB JAMAAL WILLIAMS POST-GAME QUOTE SHEET
On hearing about the team coming so close to winning week after week over the past two years: “I’m
over it. It’s not to the point where I’m lashing out at people just because they asked that question. But
we know what we need to do. Of course, it’s irritating to hear the same question over and over and
know how close we really are. We’ve just got to keep going. So, that’s why I don’t really pay attention to
the words or people saying anything just because we know how really close we really are. It’s just up to
us to find out, pull it out of ourselves and come out with these dubs.”
On the difference between the offense in the first and second half today: “We’ve just got to stop
inflicting penalties on ourselves, especially when we get in a grove. We’ve just got to keep it going and
just try to get the domino effect of positive plays happening.”
On achieving multiple personal records but not achieving many positive team results: “Yeah, it mostly
goes to just my teammates. Blocking, being able to give that whole effort and showing me the holes so I
can go out there and make plays. So I give credit to them. Every touchdown, every yard I get, it’s credit
to the linemen, my tight ends, (Lions QB Jared Goff) JG, the receivers, everybody blocking, everybody
who believes in me and just giving me these opportunities. So, I’m never doing it by myself. It’s always a
team effort. I just give all my credit and everything to my teammates for helping me get there.”
