ARLINGTON, Texas — Jamaal Williams sat in front of his locker with his head bowed, brushing his hair, battling for his role in another confusing Detroit Lions loss.
Williams lost a fumble on the goal line early in the fourth quarter of Sunday’s 24-6 loss to the Dallas Cowboys, the second of five turnovers the Lions committed in a second-half snowball .
The Cowboys turned three of those errors into the game’s only three touchdowns and retired in the final minutes with a win that left the Lions (1-5) with the worst record in the NFL.
“I put it on me,” Williams told a small group of reporters after the game. “We should have scored and everything would have been different if I hadn’t put us in this situation where people had to do more than they had to, then we wouldn’t be in this situation.”
Williams had never lost a fumble before Sunday, when it happened in the 745th race of his career. He said he never fully secured the ball, which he lost when he hit a bunch of defenders near the goal line.
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“I put that on my back,” Williams said. “It’s my fault and it won’t happen again. I’m going back to work. I’m motivated, I’m pissed off. So no matter who we play next, they are able to get it.”
Lions, collectively, have been making similar promises and breaking promises for weeks now, instead of being victims of their own mistakes.
On Sunday, Jared Goff threw two interceptions and lost two fumbles and the offense, executing a conservative game plan to battle the Cowboys’ best defense in the NFL, failed to score a touchdown for the second straight game.
The Lions led 3-0 in the first quarter and 6-3 at halftime on a pair of field goals from Michael Badgley, then let the game slip away in the second half.
Goff threw his first interception on the third play of the third quarter, when he threw a deep ball to Josh Reynolds with plenty of time in the pocket. Trevon Diggs made a diving take on the play which was confirmed on a replay from the stand, although the ball appeared to detach when it hit the ground.
The Cowboys (5-2) rushed for 82 yards in seven plays on ensuing possession and took a 10-6 lead on Ezekiel Elliott’s 1-yard touchdown.
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“I can’t do it,” Goff said. “The defense played hard today and gave us a great chance to win this game and we didn’t do our part offensively.”
The Lions were in position to regain the lead when Williams fumbled with 12:29 left, having converted three third downs, including a third-and-12, in a 13-game drive.
Dallas failed to convert a third-and-one on their next possession, but Goff turned the ball over on the Lions’ final three drives to end the game.
He threw an interception on third-and-12 near midfield when he threw low and behind expected receiver Tom Kennedy, had the ball knocked out of his hand midway through his throwing motion by Sam Williams of Dallas just before the two-minute warning, and lost a fumble as he rushed with 50 seconds left.
Elliott capped an 11-play drive after Goff’s second interception with another 1-yard touchdown run, and Dak Prescott followed up the fourth of Detroit’s five turnovers with a 2-yard touchdown pass to Peyton Hendershot.
Goff, who completed 21 of 26 passes for 228 yards, has nine turnovers in six games this season, including at least one in every Lions loss.
“If you can’t keep the football, you can’t play for us,” Lions coach Dan Campbell said. “It’s too devastating. We are not able to overcome them.”
Williams finished with 79 rushing yards on 15 carries for the Lions, who had six points in their last two games after averaging 35 points in the first four games of the season.
Campbell said he was pleased with his team’s defensive effort for the second straight week.
“You don’t like losing games, but I don’t get down and I don’t lose confidence,” Campbell said. “I’m not going to go hide in a corner. That’s not what I want because I know you change a few things, man, you take care of football, you play your game plan as you should and all of a sudden you win.
“So we have to keep that in the real perspective of the fact that, hey, our defense is playing really good football at the moment and we have to keep doing that. And if we do that, we can take the pressure off now in all three phases. , or the other two and now we can start to – you can help your other units a bit. That’s why I’m encouraged. I hate to lose, but it encourages me because I know we’ll improve offensively and it won’t. won’t always be like today’s game plan either.”
Contact Dave Birkett at dbirkett@freepress.com. Follow him on Twitter @davebirkett.
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