At the end of the Seattle Seahawks’ 51-29 romp over the Detroit Lions, Seahawks coach Pete Carroll kept his offense driving down the field with most starters still playing. Quarterback Russell Wilson guided the Seahawks on a 7-play, 43-yard drive down to the Lions’ 1-yard line.
It was at that point, with just over one minute to play, that Carroll finally called upon Wilson to take a knee in victory formation. It was the first time in nine drives the Seahawks didn’t score, and the only reason they didn’t was taking mercy on the Lions.
Lions head coach Dan Campbell didn’t have a problem with the Seahawks driving it down his defense’s throat one more time. In fact, he turned it around in the exact manner a sports radio host would excoriate a coach whose defense was terrible.
When asked if he had a problem with Carroll not calling off the dogs until the very end, Campbell responded,
“No. I mean look, the way I look at that is, ‘Well, if you don’t like it, you better stop it.’ Hey man, kudos. To be honest with you, if they would have ran it in at the end, I wouldn’t have had a problem with that either. It’s up to us to stop them. There are 60 minutes on that game clock, so if you’ve got a problem, then why don’t you stop it? Otherwise, they’ll just keep piling it on. So, no, I don’t have any problem with that.”
Good answer, coach. Now maybe work on figuring out how to stop them before that point, even with backups playing at nearly every position all afternoon. At least Campbell knows it and owns it.
