He couldn’t count on his defense to stop the Dallas Cowboys, so Matt Patricia made the decision early Sunday that he had to try and win the game in regulation.
That’s why, Patricia said in a roundabout way, he decided to go for two when the Lions scored to cut their deficit to 35-27 late in the fourth quarter.
The plan failed when Jeff Driskel threw incomplete on the two-point try and the Lions never scored again, but Patricia said going for two when he did gave the Lions the best chance to win.
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“Going into the fourth quarter, the start of the fourth quarter, when kind of those scenarios come up, we kind of take evaluation of, ‘All right, where is the game going? What’s kind of positive? What’s not going so well? What do we think our best chances are?’ ” Patricia said. “And then really what you do is you fast forward to the end of the game and say, ‘All right, are you going to be going for a two-point play here or not?’ Or, ‘What’s your decision making?’
“Once I kind of go through that thought process there and decide that, probably in the situation we were in, we’re going for two at the end of the game, then really what you want to do is you want to take a shot at two two-point plays. And hopefully, you get the first. If you don’t, then you can go to your second two-point play at the end, and then obviously, go for the tie at that point.”
Working out of an empty backfield set on the two-point try, the Lions split Marvin Jones and T.J. Hockenson to the right of the formation and ran a pick play to the left, with running back J.D. McKissic cutting in front of Kenny Golladay for a quick slant.
Cowboys defensive back Jourdan Lewis (Michigan, Detroit Cass Tech), who lined up across from Golladay at the snap, read the play and stayed on the goal line, disrupting McKissic’s route as Driskel’s pass fell harmlessly incomplete.
The Lions forced a punt on Dallas’ next possession, but saw their final drive end with a punt on fourth-and-31 after taking two penalties and allowing a sack.
“Two-point thing, though, is as soon as you commit to it, you have to stay with it from that standpoint.” Patricia said. “It’s one of those things where you try to judge momentum swing through the fourth quarter and figure out what’s going in which direction, and certainly, at that point, if we were able to score those touchdowns and be in those positions then the offense would have probably swung things in their favor at that point, probably would have felt pretty good about the two-point (try) at the end of the game.”
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Contact Dave Birkett at dbirkett@freepress.com. Follow him on Twitter @davebirkett. Read more on the Detroit Lions and sign up for our Lions newsletter.
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November 17, 2019 at 06:45PM
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