After the Lions lost to the Eagles 44-6 before the bye, head coach Dan Campbell watched the tape of the offense three times. He then decided to commit more of his time to the offense.
On Sunday, for the first time this season, Campbell donned the headset and communicated the play calls to quarterback Jared Goff. Offensive coordinator Anthony Lynn had called the plays in the team’s first eight games.
Campbell tried to downplay the reduced role for Lynn.
“One of the things was: Why not change it up a little bit here?” Campbell said, via Justin Rogers of the Detroit News. “I wanted to be able to talk to (Goff) in game. Sometimes I think you’re able to get in the flow of the game when you’re the guy who’s calling it. It just helps to know exactly where to go.
“Honestly, I don’t think it’s a big deal. There were still things I was giving to A-Lynn when he was calling. It’s just now I took the green dot (headset with direct line to the quarterback) basically to Goff, so I could communicate to him. I’ll still grab some (play) calls from them. I’ll use my own calls. It was a joint effort by all those guys.”
Campbell admitted during an interview with Sports Illustrated last week that he had called only eight to 10 offensive plays this season. As an assistant coach, or even as interim head coach for the Dolphins in 2015, Campbell never called plays.
The Lions had 306 yards with a season-best 229 rushing yards.
“It was really good,” Goff said. “I thought he did a great job and had a good feel for wanting to come back to something that we had done previously and kind of wanted to mix it up. I think he’ll only learn and continue to get better from here.”