Minnesota - 28, Detroit - 24
DAN CAMPBELL: That was tough. Credit to those guys over there. They played hard. Our guys came out and played hard, man. I thought they executed the plan. I thought our O-line played really well.
I thought Goff played really well. I thought he was seeing it. He moved the offense, was efficient. Made plays. It was really good.
You know, you've got these third downs you've got to be better on offensively. Then in defense, we've got to load in some of these penalties. We knew they were an explosive offense. They've got weapons over there. We knew there would be ebbs and flows in the game, and we had a chance at the end to close it out.
As far as me, I frickin' regret my decision there at the end. Should have gone for it on fourth down. I told the team that.
Q. Can you just explain why you attempted the field goal there? What were you thinking?
DAN CAMPBELL: There was about three scenarios going on. I'm not going to say what one of them was, but I just -- it felt like, you know what, let's kick a field goal. We go up by six and force them to score a touchdown for the win. They had no timeouts. Instead of going for it.
Q. You're on a trend of like losses in a close game. Is that something you guys can work on to improve? Why do you think you guys haven't been able to close out some of these close games?
DAN CAMPBELL: It's one play here, one play there. One more conversion, we get one more stop. Just out of the number of plays that are in there, you just say, all we've got to do is one of these different.
But we had our chances. We played some pretty good football for a while. It came in spurts. I told the team, man, when the downs come, we've got to handle them with composure. When the ups come, we've got to capitalize on them. We didn't capitalize enough. That's kind of how I felt.
Q. Dan, are you kind of mad at yourself because you had a go for it on fourth down point of view, and that changed down the field?
DAN CAMPBELL: I hate it. I just hate the decision. I wish I could put it back in their hands offensively. So be it, you know. I just wish I would have done that.
Q. You have been so aggressive early on.
DAN CAMPBELL: I felt like we needed to do that against this team.
Q. And the juxtaposition of that at the end -- I know you started to explain it, but just getting there.
DAN CAMPBELL: I regret that decision 100 percent. I really do. I hate it. I do feel like I cost our team. I really do.
Q. Similarly, at the end of the first half, you went for it on fourth down instead of punting it and pinning them deep with just a little bit of clock left. Do you feel like that decision put them in position to get some points?
DAN CAMPBELL: When?
Q. End of the first half, that decision to go for it on fourth down. Seemed like you gave them a short field and the ability to capitalize on it?
DAN CAMPBELL: I kind of felt like that's the game you play a little bit. When you're going to be as aggressive as we were, there's going to be some give and take with it. I don't regret that. I kind of felt like that was in the flow of the game.
You're going to win some and lose some. Hopefully the ones you win, you'll get points out of them.
Q. Regardless of the decision, you still had a chance to make a play at the end. What happened on the touchdown catch they had?
DAN CAMPBELL: Just communication. Communication. We were a little bit late, a little bit behind.
Q. You were up by ten, eight minutes to go on the road, a division game, looked like you might get it. What do you say to the team after this one?
DAN CAMPBELL: Look, just -- listen, don't get frazzled by it. Now, I told them it should sting. It shouldn't taste good because we had that. I just told them, we've got to learn from it, man. We've got to learn from the plays, and there's going to be -- as you know, I mean, you guys got a job to do. But there will be a lot of criticism placed on a number of guys, myself including the players, which is natural, they all know it.
Then you can't go on the downs and ups. Just stay true to what it is and learn from our mistakes and just we've got to go back to work Wednesday. Another good opponent. That's what we've got to do.
Q. You called a timeout right before that final touchdown. You mentioned communication error on the play. How frustrating is it when you call the timeout to reset the group and it still breaks down that way?
DAN CAMPBELL: Yeah, I was trying to get some rush. I was wanting to get our guys their lungs back a little bit. Yeah, it's frustrating. It's frustrating.
Q. Tracy, is there an update there?
DAN CAMPBELL: We don't know entirely. We'll know more in the morning. It doesn't look real good. Obviously it's the ankle area, possibly could be the Achilles. We'll see.
Q. You have a couple guys that got through some things out there today. (Indiscernible). Could you just speak to some of the effort of those guys?
DAN CAMPBELL: Listen, those guys are tough. They are. They're in it, man. They give all they've got. I was proud of those guys for going out there and battling.
They wanted to be in there, and they wanted to help their team. They certainly weren't a hundred percent, but it was good to see those guys go back out there and compete.
Q. You mentioned the offensive line in your opening comments. You made the decision to go with Evan at guard. What led to that decision? How do you think he filled in that role?
DAN CAMPBELL: Once we felt like Frank was going to be a go, we just felt like Evan would give us the best shot at right guard. Knowing that Frank was going, Evan is another guy who's pretty smart, and he works well with those guys. He understands what we're doing, obviously playing the center position.
Guard's different, but he's just working with Sewell and Frank, and you felt like he's going to give us a good opportunity, and I thought he played well.
Q. Injuries obviously forced you to limit Swift's carries. Do his injuries --
DAN CAMPBELL: Yeah. I would say he was -- yes. That's a fair assessment.
Q. The reason you had so many fourth downs was third down situations. What do you think was going wrong on third downs?
DAN CAMPBELL: It was just a couple of things here and there. Some of them were also -- there was a couple of them that were -- I gave Ben the green light. He knows what's coming. So you're not always going to get that. You're trying to get it in a more manageable fourth. You'd love to get the third. Some of those play into it.
Certainly we were just a little off on some of that stuff, whether it was breaking the huddle or just trying to get guys in position, get the check, get the call. We were just a little bit sporadic. We just weren't clicking, and that's something we've done pretty good the last couple weeks. It wasn't quite there today.
Q. Dan, your aggressiveness is part of who you've been since you've been here. Does a game like this in any way force you to reevaluate that?
DAN CAMPBELL: I'm sorry?
Q. You're aggressiveness, who you are since you've been here. Do you reevaluate that at all after something like this?
DAN CAMPBELL: I always evaluate it. I go back and watch it and really think about was this is the right thing to do? Was this not the right thing to do?
I do know, if you're going to go in and feel like you need to be aggressive early in the game, you can't second guess when it doesn't work out for you early in the game.
No, not really. It's not going to affect me. I'm going to kind of always just do what I feel is best to help us win.
Q. Fourth down with three or four minutes left, was that in the back of your head at all as to why you didn't go for it?
DAN CAMPBELL: Yeah, I thought about it. I thought about it. It was close. There was a couple other factors that I'd rather not get into just because I don't want the opponent to know.
But, yeah, that was one of those, man -- I don't regret it, but yet it makes you think, man. Should we have gone for it?
Q. Was pooching it one of the options you were considering?
DAN CAMPBELL: That was an option. It wasn't the option.
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