Turnovers doom Detroit Lions vs. Cowboys: 'This is my fault and it won’t happen again'

ARLINGTON, Texas — Jamaal Williams sat in front of his locker, head down, brushing his hair, beating himself up over his role in another baffling loss by the Detroit Lions.

Williams lost a fumble on the goal line early in the fourth quarter of Sunday's 24-6 defeat to the Dallas Cowboys, the second of five turnovers the Lions committed in a snowball of a second half.

The Cowboys turned three of those mistakes into the only three touchdowns of the game, and pulled away in the final minutes with a victory 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 didn’t put us in that situation of making people have to do more than what they had to do, then we wouldn’t be in that situation."

Williams had never lost a fumble before Sunday, when it happened on the 745th carry of his career. He said he never fully secured the ball, which he lost when he ran into a pile of defenders near the goal line.

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"I put this on my back," Williams said. "This is my fault and it won’t happen again. I’m going back to work. I’m motivated, I’m pissed. So whoever we’re playing next, they’re fitting to get it."

The Lions, collectively, have been making similar promises and failing to deliver for weeks now, instead falling victim to their own compounding mistakes.

On Sunday, Jared Goff threw two interceptions and lost two fumbles and the offense, running a conservative game plan to combat the Cowboys' NFL-best defense, 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 Michael Badgley field goals, 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 underthrew a deep ball to Josh Reynolds with plenty of time in the pocket. Trevon Diggs made a diving catch on the play that was upheld on a booth replay, though the ball appeared to come loose when he hit the ground.

The Cowboys (5-2) marched 82 yards on seven plays on the ensuing possession and took a 10-6 lead on Ezekiel Elliott's 1-yard touchdown run.

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"Can’t do it," Goff said. "Defense played their tails off today and gave us a great chance to win that game and we didn’t do our part offensively."

The Lions were in position to re-take the lead when Williams fumbled with 12:29 to play, after converting three third downs, including a third-and-12, on a 13-play drive.

Dallas failed to convert a third-and-1 on its 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 intended receiver Tom Kennedy, had the ball stripped from his hand in the middle of his throwing motion by Dallas’ Sam Williams just before the two-minute warning, and lost a fumble as he was scrambling with 50 seconds to play.

Elliott capped an 11-play drive after Goff's second interception with another 1-yard touchdown run, and Dak Prescott followed the fourth of Detroit’s five turnovers with a 2-yard touchdown pass to Peyton Hendershot.

Goff, who finished 21 of 26 passing for 228 yards, has nine turnovers in six games this season, including at least one in every Lions loss.

"If you can’t hold onto the football, you can’t play for us," Lions coach Dan Campbell said. "It’s too devastating. We’re not in the position to overcome those."

Williams finished with 79 yards rushing on 15 carries for the Lions, who have six points in their past 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 to lose games, but I’m not down and I’m not losing confidence," Campbell said. "I’m not going to go hide in a corner. That’s not what I’m about cause I know you change a couple of things, man, you take care of the football, you play your game plan the way you should and all of a sudden you win.

"So we got to keep this in the true perspective of the fact that, hey, our defense is playing pretty good football right now and we got to continue to do that. And if we do that we can alleviate some pressure now in all three phases, or the other two and now we can start to — you can help your other units out a little bit. That’s why I’m encouraged. I hate losing, but I’m encouraged by that because I know we’ll get better offensively and it won’t always be like today’s game plan, either."

Contact Dave Birkett at dbirkett@freepress.com. Follow him on Twitter @davebirkett.

This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Turnovers doom Detroit Lions in loss to Dallas Cowboys, 24-6