You can't make stupid calls like that against the #1 seed on the road. He killed any chance they had by taking points off the board a few times. It's not a consolation prize to make a championship game when stupidity is the reason you're not in the Super Bowl. He's done it on a number of occasions. It's one thing to lose but it's another to choke and give it away. Look like a completely different team in the second half then you did in the first. His rah rah style of coaching and thinking he's just going to impose his will, will do nothing but kill them every year when playing smarter coaches who know better than to shoot themselves in the foot every chance they get. I don't really care.. it's the Lions, but it sure would've been nice to see the Niners go down at home. And they blew it in grand fashion.
When SF went down the field and got a fg, and then Detroit had a relatively easy fg in range, there was no need to go for a td. By countering SF's fg with their own, essentially all the SF fg would have done was to run off a bunch of clock, they'd still have been behind by the same amount of points. That is, or could be, rather demoralizing. But noooo, Campbell had to be Mr. Tough Guy and "go for the throat".
And when it failed, you could clearly see SF getting a huge emotional lift. Dan conveniently forgot to look at the other side of what could happen in that decision.
Well, there are times to do that, and there are times not to do that. These cases were the latter.
But fire Campbell? The only coach in 30 years to win a playoff game for Detroit? Lol.
He's young, he'll learn, or if not, this will happen again and then he should be fired.
I remember Jerry firing Chan Gailey after only 2 years as the head coach of the Cowboys, despite being in the playoffs both of those years. That in my opinion was Jerry's biggest coaching blunder ever, even outstripping keeping Jason Garrett for 10 years....