Allen Park — Entering Week 9, the Detroit Lions rank ninth in points per game. That’s not bad. They’ve also gone scoreless in second halves over their last three games. That’s very bad.
On the heels of a third — and what the Lions hope is the last — instance of Detroit’s offense getting blanked in the second half, both offensive coordinator Ben Johnson and quarterback Jared Goff talked about the “self-inflicted” wounds that have been hurting the offense of late.
On Sunday against the Dolphins, Detroit put up 27 in the first half, before getting iced in the final two quarters.
“We only had three (drives) in the second half, and two of them, we had penalties — huge penalties that put us in big holes,” Johnson said. “… To me, it’s more us, as opposed to a defense doing things that we aren’t countering well enough.
“I’d just say last week in particular, they were playing a little bit more of a vanilla brand of football than what they’ve put on tape so far this year. It’s probably due to their personnel more than anything else, so we had a good feel for what they were doing. It just came down to execution, which we didn’t do a good enough job of.”
So many times this season, the momentum-sapping play or drive has come by way of a turnover. As Johnson alluded to, that wasn’t the case this past week.
“We lost our momentum. And well, why did we lose it? … One of the first things that does come to mind is the penalties,” Campbell said. “And now, with that being said, we’ve gotta be able to overcome that. That’s what good teams are able to do. They can overcome those penalties and really offensively, in particular, we’ve been able to do that early in the year at times.”
Goff has been a central character in Detroit’s momentum misfortune. He’s thrown two pick-6s, had a fumble returned for a touchdown against New England and threw another costly interception that disrupted momentum against the Pats that week, before a two-interception game against Dallas. Like his head coach, Goff recognizes that completely eradicating penalties or mistakes is not a feasible solution. It’s about working past them to make sure they don’t interfere with the next drive, or the one after that.
“(The errors are) typically self-inflicted,” Goff said. “And that’s the kind of frustrating part. I wish I could say, ‘Yeah, the defense came out and did something we weren’t expecting and kinda caught us off-guard,’ and that hasn’t been the case. It’s been self-inflicted and for a variety of reasons, but this past week, unfortunately, there were some penalties.
“I think, though, with that being said, how can we — every team is going to have a bad drive here and there. They’re gonna have penalties. They’re gonna have a turnover. How do we put it away and move on and get back to what we do quicker, the next drive? Respond.
“And I think that’s where the emphasis is put. Less on, ‘Hey guys, let’s avoid mistakes.’ More, ‘Hey, let’s respond after that.’”
While the Lions’ offense has been bad in second halves as of late, Campbell said the unit doesn’t deserve a full share of the blame for Detroit ultimately falling victim to the momentum of their opponents. The defense did come through with a stop in the second half against Miami and held it together against Dallas for as long as they could, but for the most part, has been the more unwilling participant.
“We can’t let (the other team) stunt our momentum. And at that point, if it’s not happening (on offense), it’s got to happen from the defense. They’ve got to pick up the slack. Get the ball back to the offense and vice versa,” Campbell said. “You guys have heard me talk about it. There’s so much more about complementary football, or our special teams have to come up with a big play. We have to get a blocked punt or we — create a takeaway. Things of (that) nature.”
nbianchi@detroitnews.com
Twitter: @nolanbianchi