Dan Campbell explains why he won't ever pull starters before the fourth quarter

During the Detroit Lions runaway 52-6 win over the Jacksonville Jaguars, head coach Dan Campbell kept his key starters in the game into the fourth quarter. The outcome had long been decided, but Jared Goff, Penei Sewell, Brian Branch, Alim McNeill and other prominent starters were still out there running wild and free over the hapless Jaguars.

Campbell took some criticism for that decision. In a game where the already injury-ravaged Lions defense lost starting LB and captain Alex Anzalone to a broken forearm, there was consternation that leaving the important players in was too much of an injury risk.

When asked about that in his weekly appearance on 97.1 The Ticket on Tuesday, Campbell pushed back hard at that notion. He explained his rationale for leaving starters in, even with the lopsided margin.

“Well you want to win the game. That’s number one,” Campbell told hosts Jim Costa and Jon Jansen. “What you don’t want to do is you get in one of those and you’re up, and then you decide you’re gonna let off the gas and, ‘Let’s get the starters out,’ and then they mount a comeback.”

The coach noted that it’s important to him to make sure the momentum doesn’t end. The Lions were playing excellent football and Campbell wanted to keep that sharpness and positivity going.

“You want to make sure you end on a good note,” Campbell explained. “You’re playing good, efficient football, the guys feel good about it, you’re in a rhythm, I think it bleeds into the next week and I think that’s important, so we did that.”

And then Campbell bluntly rejected the idea of pulling players before the fourth quarter out of fear of injury.

“If you’re able to pull them out in the early fourth, great, and we were able to do that,” Campbell explained. “But if you’re asking me to pull somebody out in the third quarter, or pull somebody out in the second quarter before Anzalone gets hurt, I’m never gonna do that.”