Late in the second quarter of the Detroit Lions’ matchup with the New York Giants, Jared Goff connected with Kalif Raymond for a 30-yard gain.
Instead of stopping the clock right away, head coach Dan Campbell held onto the remaining timeout, and Goff hurried to spike the ball. That decision left Detroit with only eight seconds before halftime.
During his weekly appearance on 97.1 The Ticket, Campbell was asked why he didn’t immediately call a timeout to give the offense more opportunities to take shots into the end zone—especially with the Lions trailing 20–14 and set to receive the second-half kickoff.
Campbell admitted he would probably handle it differently in hindsight.
“Yeah, I should’ve used it there,” Campbell said. “We still had one timeout, so the thought was: take a shot inbounds, use the timeout, then decide whether to go for the end zone again or kick the field goal. Either way, you’d still end up with one real play to make a choice.
If you want three end-zone shots, I get that. Could I have burned it right away? Sure. But in the moment, I figured, ‘Let’s clock it and keep the timeout.’ You don’t want something chaotic to happen, and at least you’d still have that timeout available.”
Since Campbell took over play-calling duties from the offensive coordinator, fans and analysts have wondered how effectively he could balance designing the offense with making big situational decisions on the fly. Campbell acknowledged he’s still sharpening that skill set.
He noted it’s been several years since he last called plays in real time, so there is naturally an adjustment period. Many have noticed that while Campbell is extremely aggressive with his play-calling overall, he tends to be more conservative near the end of the first half.
Critics also point out that unused first-half timeouts disappear at halftime, making it important to deploy them strategically.
Campbell agreed there’s room for improvement.
> “The more I’m back in this role, doing both jobs, the better I’ll get,” he said. “I always want to be better than the week before. We all do. You want your show next week to outdo this week’s, right?”
