They say there’s a fine line between courage and insanity. For the Lions, there’s no such line.
They proved it on Thursday night, going for it on fourth down five different times. They converted four of them, but the one that failed was a Barry Switzer-style move.
Fourth and one from their own 31. Up 24-21. They went for it.
The toss sweep to Jahmyr Gibbs failed, miserably. Four plays later, the Packers took the lead.
The fact that coach Dan Campbell went for it in that spot made it far less surprising when he made the decision to go for it on fourth and one from the Green Bay 21 with 43 seconds to play.
The goal was to keep the ball out of Packers quarterback Jordan Love’s hands. Starting from the 30 (assuming a kickoff out of the end zone), the Packers could have easily gotten in position for an overtime-forcing field goal. Or a game-winning touchdown.
Still, for most teams there’s a line between aggressiveness and recklessness. For the Lions, there isn’t.
It’s a byproduct of the embrace of analytics. In the not-so-old days, coaches rarely embraced the unconventional move. Along came analytics, which not only gave them cover but, in some cases, compelled them to do the gutsy thing. (Indeed, failure to follow the advice of the in-house mathematicians often becomes a major point of interrogation by ownership during the day-after meeting with the coach.)
We’re now so accustomed to analytics pointing to the unconventional move that the unconventional has become conventional. To the point where the unconventional has become so conventional that we just assume an unconventional move is supported by sound analytics principles. Even when it isn’t.
Why does any of this matter? Because the Lions’ unrelenting willingness to roll the dice and damn the torpedoes torpedoed last year’s Super Bowl run, when Campbell opted to go for it on fourth and short and pass on a field-goal try that would have restored their three-score lead at halftime over the 49ers. And because it could happen again in the 2024 playoffs.
Despite the 12-1 record, the Lions aren’t the ’85 Bears. Yes, Detroit has had several dominant wins. More often than not, they’re in nail-biters. Seven Lions games have been decided by one score. On multiple recent occasions (Week 12 and 13), the Lions played with their food, blowing double-digit halftime leads before securing the win.
The eventual challenge for Campbell will be to know when to slide the switch from going for broke to playing it safe. The real question might be whether he even has such a switch.