Tom Brady Criticizes Dan Campbell After Lions’ Loss To 49ers

If Tom Brady was coaching the Lions on Sunday night at Levi’s Stadium, his strategy would have differed from Dan Campbell’s.

Campbell’s patented aggressive playcalling arguably is the biggest reason why Detroit won’t represent the NFC in Super Bowl LVIII. The Lions potentially cost themselves six points by pushing the envelope on fourth downs in the 49ers’ end, and those missed opportunities proved to be very costly in a 34-31 loss.

Rolling the dice was a big reason why Detroit reached the conference championship clash in the first place. But at that stage, Brady believes Campbell’s side should have played it a bit safer.

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“You know obviously, when you’re aggressive and it doesn’t work, it comes back to bite you,” Brady said on the latest episode of his “Let’s Go!” podcast, as transcribed by Bleacher Report. “It came back to bite them yesterday. Again, I would’ve taken the points.

“I’ve been in those situations. I look at them and say, OK, this is the opportunity to continue to keep the pressure on the 49ers to make great plays and you’re in a great position.”

Arguably Campbell’s biggest error in judgment wasn’t a fourth-down call, though. Down 10 at San Francisco’s 1-yard line with roughly a minute to play, Detroit called a run play that failed and forced the visitors to burn one of their timeouts. The Lions quickly pulled within three, but with only two timeouts available, they couldn’t prevent the Niners from running out the clock.

“The handoff there late in the game, that was the one I didn’t understand,” Brady said. “Unless you saw some incredible look to walk the ball in, you just can’t take the chance that you’re gonna be stopped short and keep the clock running. You just can’t get the ball back. So that was the one I just said, ‘I don’t know what they’re doing.’ I thought it was just a flat-out error.”

Immediately after the game, Campbell expressed no regrets about his questionable fourth-down decisions. However, the third-year head coach acknowledged throwing instead of rushing in the Lions’ final possession “should’ve been the right thing.”

The narrow loss surely will sting in Detroit for some time, because as Campbell candidly explained to his team after the game, that might have been the group’s only chance to reach a Super Bowl.