Dave BirkettDetroit Free Press
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The day after they blew a 17-point halftime lead in their NFC championship game loss to the San Francisco 49ers, the Detroit Lions still were coming to grips with the defeat.
"This is what you hear about all the time with catastrophes," Lions coach Dan Campbell said Monday. "It doesn’t take one or two, it takes 12 things to go wrong and we did all 12 of those wrong in all three phases."
The Lions compounded their mistakes Sunday, dropping passes, missing blocking assignments, bobbling interceptions, blowing coverages and chasing points with coaching decisions.
The 49ers scored 27 straight points in the second half and rallied for a 34-31 win after trailing, 24-7, at halftime.
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They play the Kansas City Chiefs next week in Super Bowl 58.
"Ultimately, where we’ve been so good (is when one area) is struggling a little bit, the other two pick them up," Campbell said. "We’ve been really good about that and that was the game, the second half, where all three phases just — we were not good. And we continued to make mistake, after mistake, after mistake in all three phases and when that happens, that’s where a game like that against a very good opponent — their guys showed up."
The 49ers got big second-half plays from their best players Sunday — Christian McCaffrey scored on a 1-yard run, Brandon Aiyuk made an acrobatic catch that flipped field position, Brock Purdy made plays with his arm and feet, and Nick Bosa had a sack — while some of the Lions' biggest stars disappeared late in the game.
Jahmyr Gibbs lost a fumble that led to a 49ers touchdown. Josh Reynolds had two drops, including one on fourth-and-2. Aidan Hutchinson didn't record a tackle.. And Jared Goff missed a handful of passes.
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For his part, Campbell said he "probably should have" called for a pass on third-and-goal from the 1-yard line with just over a minute to play, when David Montgomery and was stopped for a 2-yard loss on a run play.
The Lions took their first timeout after the play rather than let the clock tick, but after they scored on fourth-and-goal from the 3, they didn't have enough timeouts to get the ball back for one final possession.
"The easy thing to do is to throw it," Campbell said. "Probably should’ve been the right thing, but for me, I wanted to run it. I thought we would just pop it. We had just — 2-minute all the way down the field, throwing the football and they were in a four-down front and I believed we’d walk right in and we just missed a block, so then yeah, I’ve got to use a timeout. So, hindsight, throw it four times, but I believed in that moment it was going to be a walk-in run. And it didn’t work out. So, I gambled and lost.”
Had Montgomery scored on third-and-goal, and he likely would have had Jameson Williams made a block at the line of scrimmage, to preserve the Lions' third timeout, the Lions would have been in position to get the ball with about 40 seconds left after stopping the 49ers on their final drive.
MRIs, plural
Pro Bowl center Frank Ragnow said he's not sure if he'll need any surgeries this offseason for the assortment of injuries he played through this year.
Ragnow suffered knee and ankle sprains in the Lions' divisional playoff win over the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, but played every offensive snap in Sunday's loss to the 49ers.
"I got to figure everything out," Ragnow said. "We landed at 5 a.m. (after the 49ers game) and now I’m just trying to process everything and take a look at my body and my MRIs and figure everything out."
Along with knee and ankle injuries, Ragnow has battled recurring toe problems for three seasons and also was listed on the injury report this year with a back injury.
He said he's going to "take some time" this offseason to figure out his health.
"It takes a toll on you," Ragnow said. "It really takes a toll on you, so I need to find a way to get back to Frank and I don’t regret any of this at all, but it weighs on you and I’m just going to take some time and really figure everything out to make sure that I’m feeling good, not only for me the football player but for me to be the best husband and best father and everything with that as well."
Contact Dave Birkett atdbirkett@freepress.com. Follow him on Twitter@davebirkett.
