Lions' Dan Campbell Admits Mistake vs. 49ers in NFL Playoffs: 'I Gambled and Lost'

Detroit Lions head coach Dan Campbell said he "gambled and lost" with his decision to run the ball on third down late in the fourth quarter of the NFC Championship Game.

On 3rd-and-goal from the San Francisco 49ers' 1-yard line, Campbell put the ball into the hands of running back David Montgomery. Montgomery lost two yards but more costly was the fact Detroit had to burn a timeout.

"Yeah, look, the easy thing to do is to throw it," Campbell told reporters. "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 (ran a) two-minute (drill) all the way down the field, throwing the football, and they were in a four-down front. I believed we'd walk right in. We just missed a block, so then yeah, I've got to use a timeout."

He added that he'd "throw it four times" with the benefit of hindsight.

"But I believed in that moment it was going to be a walk-and-run, and it didn't work out," he said. "So, I gambled and lost."

While Jared Goff hit Jameson Williams for a three-yard touchdown pass to make it a 34-31 game, Detroit didn't have enough timeouts to get the ball back. After recovering the onside kick, the 49ers ran off the final 56 seconds to seal their win.

Campbell faced plenty of criticism both during and after the game. In addition to the running play on that crucial third down, he turned down what would've been two manageable field-goal attempts and went for it on fourth down in the second half. Leaving those points on the board proved important given the final score.

In the case of his fourth-down calls, though, Campbell didn't second-guess himself after the fact.