‘It worked like a charm’

“Ben, that was one of his ideas,” Lions head coach Dan Campbell said after the game. via the team’s website. “… We massaged it and worked it. How do we make this thing better? Just Goff, Gibby, LaPorta, the offensive line that made it work. We did it all week and they did a heck of a job .”

Johnson’s original take on the trick game was even crazier, it turns out.

“We ran it three or four times during the week,” Goff said. “First it started on Monday with Ben asking me if he thought I could actually fumble on purpose and actually pick it back up. I said, ‘I don’t know about that?’ “

As the voice of reason, Goff suggested an alternative: a fake fumble and fake dive by Gibbs without Goff ever letting go of the ball. When they executed the play on first-and-10 just outside the red zone, the Bears’ pass rush slowed down considerably as Goff and Gibbs fumbled. Meanwhile, LaPorta streaked past the secondary in the open.

“I think the part with Gibbs where he dives really sells the play,” Goff said. “It worked like a charm.”

Campbell said the Lions did even better in Sunday’s game than they did in practice. Sunday’s win – and the successful trick play – also helped ease things after the Lions’ recent string of accidental injuries, which suffered last week in just their second loss of the season. Campbell said the coaches and players invested in the game and came up with something that worked. And all the hard work paid off.

“It was just amazing to see,” Campbell said.