Dan Campbell candidly admits area he wants to improve in coming out of bye week

Never one to mince words, Dan Campbell openly admitted an area he wants to improve in as the Lions come out of their bye week.

As the Detroit Lions went into their Week 5 bye, head coach Dan Campbell acknowledged a small sample of games as tough to assess but the overall idea of a self-scout during the team's time off.

"Where are we at? What are we doing well? What are we not doing well? How do we help these guys?’ And I think that’s really got to be the emphasis right now. We can be much better. We need to be much better.”

The Lions were back to work on Monday, with a couple bits of positive injury news from practice that Campbell passed along. But of course Campbell fielded questions about the upcoming Week 6 game against the Dallas Cowboys, the strength of the NFC North through five weeks, etc.

Dan Campbell acknowledges area he wants to improve in coming off bye

Campbell was specifically asked what the self-scout from the bye week revealed in terms of areas that need improvement.

"Yeah, I'm not gonna get into all that, I knew you were gonna ask that. We went through it with all the coaches," Campbell said. "I would tell you one. Communication on my part. Overall communication, particularly with the staff, is where I can be much better."

Regarding the need for him to improve how he communicates with his staff, it's easy to assume Campbell was partly referring to the situation near the end of the first half in Week 2 against the Tampa Bay Buccaneers.

A too-many men on the field penalty, when the field goal unit started to run onto the field, caused a 10-second run-off and cost the Lions a chance at three points that proved to be important in a four-point loss. Campbell fully owned the mistake coming out of the locker room at halftime, and after the game.

"Their head coach cost them. Critical error at the end of the half 100 percent on me. . . . There was no way to justify this. It’s a massive error on my part and no one else’s. It was just between hurry-up field goal and clocking it and it was 100 percent my fault.”

Special teams coach Dave Fipp was sure to accept his share of the responsibility for that mistake against Tampa Bay, but Campbell knows the buck stops with him and no one else should be blamed.

Campbell surely won't use any excuses, but an NFL sideline is a hectic place during a game and communication can become difficult. Still, what seemed like a one-off mistake (albeit in an important spot) had Campbell taking some of the bye week to look at how he can do better as a communicator.