Campbell does ‘right thing,’ rolls with starters

Eric Woodyard, ESPNDec 31, 2024, 01:34 AM ET

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SANTA CLARA, Calif. — Should he? Or shouldn’t he?

Entering the Monday Night Football showdown against the San Francisco 49ers, Detroit Lions coach Dan Campbell thought long and hard about whether he should rest or play the starters.

After careful consideration, he decided to go full throttle with his top guys in a rematch of the 2023 NFC Championship game as the Lions escaped Levi’s Stadium with a 40-34 win over the San Francisco 49ers while avoiding any major injuries.

“Yeah, it was on my mind, and I thought a lot about it. I thought it leading up to the game, I thought about it last night,” Campbell said. “I told the staff, but I ended up settling on the right thing to do was to play these guys because we owed it to the team.

“It was just one of those positions we were in. It’s hard to say who you’re going to sit and it’s not fair to ask guys to play that hadn’t been prepared to play,” he said. “So, yeah, that was tough, and I think the biggest thing is there were things we wanted to do better than we did last week and we did. We cleaned a lot of things up offensively.”

Campbell says they were playing to win, although the 49ers game didn’t possess any playoff implications. However, their pride was on the line after blowing a 17-point halftime lead to the same team, on the same stage, last postseason to fall one game shy of reaching the Super Bowl.

That loss still stings for those who suffered defeat on that day.

“I really wanted that get back,” said Lions safety Kerby Joseph, who snagged two interceptions. “I feel like we came in here last year and they beat us, so I still had that chip on my shoulder from last year. “Like they say in the media, this game didn’t really mean much, but this game meant a lot. I feel like we were so close, and we came up short so the feeling just to come back out here to San Fran and come back and get a win. I know we started off slow on defense, but we were able to finish.”

Lions quarterback Jared Goff agreed.

And in his California homecoming, he threw for 303 passing yards while completing 26-of-34 passes with three touchdowns and zero interceptions.

Campbell made it clear that the starters would be playing so Goff entered with a mindset to compete saying he “put that to bed pretty early on in the week” about sitting out. His three passing touchdowns for the seventh game this season, also tied Matthew Stafford (2011) for the most in a season in Lions history.

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“I’m sure that’s tough for him, but I think that’s the only way we know,” Goff said of Campbell playing the starters. “It’s just go and find a way to win and the team we were playing in San Francisco. This is what ended our season last year and there were a lot of guys on this team that were there last year that wanted to get one back on them, even though in a lot of ways in was meaningless for them and meaningless for us but they were prideful out there, too. They were trying to beat us as well and it was a fun game.”

Detroit now prepares to face the Minnesota Vikings at home on a short week this Sunday night with the NFC North division title and the NFC’s No. 1 seed on the line for a chance to get a first-round bye and home-field advantage throughout the postseason.

For Campbell, it’s a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, that he’s preparing his guys for with Detroit being one of five teams since seeding began in 1975 that have never been a No. 1 seed, along with the Cardinals, Texans, Buccaneers, and Jets.

“This is what you’re in it for, man. Ultimately, this is it,” Campbell said. “I mean, you couldn’t write a better scenario. You couldn’t come up with this. The fact that both teams are sitting at 14-2 and it’s for the division and the 1 seed. It just doesn’t get any better than that. It’s like this is fairytale stuff. And so, it speaks for itself. Our guys are excited.”

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