It has been a while since I’ve done a recap, given we had a bye week, but it’s good to be back to writing one of these. This game was extremely important for Detroit; a loss would have meant being a game and a half back of third place in the division and out of a current playoff spot. Thankfully, Detroit managed to win in what was an incredibly sloppy game for the Lions, Packers, and the referees. Even though the game was a mess, a win is a win and I am happy to move to 4-2.
I expected the defense to struggle this week. Our secondary has been one of the worst in the league and Green Bay’s deep passing attack has been on a tear the past few weeks. Golden and Watson had continuously torched defenses and I expected this week to be more of the same. However, we shut them down for the most part and our secondary looked much better. We defended the deep ball well and Brian Branch got an interception in his first game back since December. The defense built upon the success from last game against Arizona and held a good Packers offense to only 17 points.
Early on it didn’t look like the defensive improvement would continue. Green Bay drove down the field due to the passing attack and got deep in Detroit territory. Matt LaFleur decided to go for it on a 4th and 5 at the 33 yard line and converted but then did not decide to go for it on a 4th and goal from the 3. Green Bay made the 21 yard field goal but there was a penalty and they had to re-kick. Somehow, Trey Smack missed the 26 yard field goal wide right. LaFleur confused me by not going for it from the 3 after going for it earlier and the Lions got lucky with a missed field goal. With how that drive was going, it was a lucky break not to allow any points.
The Lions offense looked excellent on the next drive. Gibbs had two good runs followed by a St. Brown gain of 28 and then Jameson Williams had two catches for 40 yards and a score. The offensive line gave Goff plenty of time and the pass protection looked really good. Offense started strong and with how both teams moved the ball on the first drive, it looked like we were in for a shootout.
The Packers followed our touchdown drive with a touchdown of their own. They had another 4th down conversion and multiple third down conversions. Detroit struggled to cover Tucker Kraft on this drive and on the touchdown, Jack Campbell covered it poorly and fell to the ground, leaving Kraft wide open to tie the game. So for the second drive in a row, the defense struggled and Green Bay was aggressive on 4th downs. It still looked like a potential shootout.
Detroit moved down the field quickly next with a 40 yard gain for St. Brown but stalled shortly after. Gibbs had a loss of 5, a false start cost them another 5 yards, and Gibbs had a loss of two on 3rd and 5. The drive ended with a field goal and a 10-7 Lions lead. I love Jahmyr Gibbs. He is excellent. But it seemed to be an issue with negative plays against the Packers. They’ve done a good job at limiting his impact in his career against them so far and they continued to do so yesterday. The Packers defense stepped up when it came to stopping him. I know he ended with 116 yards on the ground but he had nearly 30 carries. Green Bay’s run defense was effective.
Following the field goal, the Packers had a quick three and out due to an Aidan Hutchinson sack. Detroit followed it up with a big play for a first down to Amon-Ra, but then had their drive killed by a sack as well. The defenses seemed to settle in and the game was still very evenly matched. Green Bay had a long drive following the Lions punt, they had a big third down pass to Savion Williams early in the drive and a huge play on another 4th down conversion, this time to Christian Watson. The drive ended inside the 10 with a turnover on downs on a short pass to Matthew Golden. D.J. Reed made a great tackle to give the Lions the ball back. Unlike last time inside the ten yard line, the Packers decided to go for it and it backfired. They could have kicked to tie the game but choice not to and it didn’t work out. LaFleur was mostly aggressive on 4th downs but the inconsistency near the goal line was baffling.
The next drive should have broken the game open for Detroit. We were driving down the field and it looked like we were going to score and end the half. Then get the ball to start the 3rd quarter and have a chance to put the game out of reach. Instead, Gibbs had the ball knocked out by his own teammate and the Packers recovered. Jameson Williams, Amon-Ra St. Brown, and Jahmyr Gibbs all made big plays on this drive but the drive ended inside the Packers 10 with center Cade Mays falling forward and accidentally punching the ball out of Gibbs’ arms. It was our first turnover since week 1 and entirely self-inflicted. What could have been a great end to the half ended in disaster.
Somehow the second half started just as bad. We fumbled again. Goff and Mays weren’t on the same page and a botched snap led to a short field for Green Bay. I believe in Cade Mays and think it’ll take a bit of time to get in the flow of things and always on the same page as the quarterback, but these last two drives showed why some of the concern with switching centers was valid. Juice Scruggs has been a quality center for the first five games but Cade Mays was always supposed to be the guy. Scruggs made it a hard decision and Mays struggled at times in his debut so it is clear that some of the doubt was warranted.
With that short field, the Packers quickly scored a touchdown after a miraculous play by Josh Jacobs. Green Bay led 14-10. I’m not going to praise Jacobs anymore than that due to his off the field issues. He shouldn’t even be playing in my opinion. The Packers were able to take the lead due to the Lions fumbling the ball away. It seemed like the Lions were shooting themselves in the foot and blowing it.
Detroit needed to score on this next drive. The Packers had new confidence with a lead and luckily the Lions had a great kick return to start. Never mind there was a penalty and the Lions were getting in their own way again. Isaac TeSlaa had a good third down conversion on this drive and Jameson Williams had a gain of 30. Gibbs had a nice run and then ran for a yard to get a questionable first down. I don’t think he reached the line to gain but there should have been a face mask call anyway on the Packers. Two plays later, the Packers were called for unnecessary roughness giving the Lions half the distance to the goal. It was a questionable call since I’m not sure the whistle was blown and the ref did get in the way, but St. Brown was down and it was unnecessary. LaFleur was not happy with the goal and he wasn’t afraid to let the refs hear it. Two plays later, we sent Penei Sewell out on a route and he somehow drew two defenders, leaving Jameson Williams open for his second score of the day. Lions lead 17-14.
Detroit had a good defensive drive next with some good plays in coverage by D.J. Reed and Khalil Dorsey. Dorsey hasn’t played much on defense this year but he made some nice plays in his opportunities with Ennis Rakestraw Jr. leaving due to an ankle injury.
The next drive started with a nice gain for St. Brown followed by two plays that went nowhere. The next play was the first of two questionable roughing the passing calls on the Packers in this game. Goff threw an incompletion and there was late contact with Cox on Goff. However it was incredibly soft contact and in no way should have been a penalty. So the drive was kept alive and Gibbs had some good runs to get to the red zone. Goff threw what looked like his first interception of the season but there was a defensive pass interference call on Packers rookie corner Brandon Cisse. It wasn’t an egregious flag at all like some other ones in this game. Gibbs had a gain of five followed by an incompletion and the next two plays were redemption for Cisse. He had great coverage on 3rd down and then on 4th down, he pushed Jameson Williams out of bounds before he could come down with another touchdown. Cisse looked pretty good overall in this drive and it looks like Green Bay has themselves a CB. I do question the decision to go for it, with how we were moving the ball, I’m sure we could have kicked it here and gone up 6, then been able to kick the game winner later if Green Bay happened to score again. Going up 10 would have been great but scoring had stalled in the game and I would have gladly taken the points.
Green Bay’s next drive had another questionable call. On first down, Love had an intentional grounding call. The ball did not make it to the line of scrimmage but I think Tucker Kraft was close enough that it should have counted as a receiver in the area. Following the flag, Love continued to take deep shots and the second one was intercepted by Brian Branch. We had the ball at our own 43. Perfect field position to go down and score some more.
We didn’t. 3 plays, 1 yard, and a punt. On first down Goff should have thrown a pick. It went directly to Evan Williams and he couldn’t come down with it. Gibbs had another short gain and on third down, Goff nearly threw an interception again. It was a bad drive and about as bad as we could do there. We didn’t even take a minute off the clock.
Green Bay slowly marched down the field on the next drive largely due to Josh Jacobs. Love threw an incompletion but got bailed out by another soft penalty flag. This one was an unnecessary roughness call on Derrick Barnes. Green Bay couldn’t capitalize and settled for a 43 yard field goal to tie the game.
The next drive is one that will get a lot of criticism and rightfully so. Another penalty on a kick return for Detroit caused the drive to start at the 15. Gibbs had a gain of nine on first but was stuffed on 2nd and 3rd down. We then went for it on 4th and 1 at our own 24 and lost two yards. I understand the thought process. First, I trust the team to gain one yard. Second, if we don’t get it, the Packers get a short field and we’re nearly guaranteed to get the ball back. However, I’m not a huge fan of the call since the game was tied and we were giving the Packers a great chance to take the lead. I know it worked out in the end but with all three timeouts and five minutes, I don’t think Green Bay would have been able to run out the clock. Obviously we’ll never know what would have happened if it was a punt, but this was a very risky decision.
The Packers should have capitalized. Josh Jacobs dropped the go ahead touchdown and the Packers then had a 35 yard field goal blocked. D.J. Wonnum barely got a hand on it and the kick went wide. One kick all year had been missed from 35 yards or under and the Packers missed two on the day yesterday. It luckily worked out for Detroit but they got lucky with the Packers failing to score.
So Detroit got the ball back with a little over three minutes to go. It was a great spot to hopefully go down the field and score as time expires to win the game. And that’s what happened. On the second play of the drive, Goff threw a laser to Sam LaPorta with three defenders in the area for a gain of 18. The pass was excellent but won’t be given the credit it deserves due to a bad roughing the passer call to add 15 more yards on. This shouldn’t have been roughing at all. But this call didn’t have much impact on the game. Gibbs had a gain of 15 on the next play and the Packers used their first timeout. Gibbs ran again and they used their second. He ran again and it took it to the two minute warning. The next play could ice the game. Two minutes left, one timeout for Green Bay, 3rd and 5. Green Bay jumped offsides. This penalty was clear unlike some of the other ones and it cost the Packers the game. Detroit got a first down and if they could get one more first down it would guaranteed be over. First down, Gibbs finds a hole and sits down to keep the clock moving. The only problem is he didn’t get the first down and that decision almost cost us. If he would have gotten the first down before going down, we could have taken three knees and kicked it to win the game without any more stress. Instead he went down short of the line. We didn’t get it on second and had a penalty on third. 3rd down and 6, need to get it or Green Bay will get the ball back. Of course Gibbs gets it. Goff takes a knee and we call a timeout with one second left and kick the game winner.
It was not pretty at all but we managed to win. The refs made too many questionable calls which took away from the actual game. Detroit went 0-2 on 4th down, 2-5 in the red zone, and two fumbles on back-to-back drives should have cost us the game but they didn’t. We were lucky to come away with a win after all of our own mistakes. But Green Bay also failed a 4th down, went 1-4 in the red zone, and missed two field goals. Both teams did enough to lose the game and the Lions were lucky to be the team that came out on top.
I do think Detroit was the better team overall. 26 first downs compared to 17, 415 yards compared to 324, 6.3 yards per play compared to 5.0, 296 passing on 32 attempts for 9.0 yards per drop back compared to 254 on 45 attempts for 5.7 per drop back, 119 yards on 3.6 per carry compared to 60 for 3.2 per carry. Detroit moved the ball better and had more opportunities to score. Both teams struggled to finish drives but the Lions managed to succeed more when needed and win the game.
An ugly win still counts the same and winning ugly in the division is expected. Division wins will define the season since every team in the division has legitimate playoff aspirations, so this win was huge. Next week against Minnesota will be just as important but it was great to win yesterday. There is plenty to clean up on but a win is a win. The defense looks to be improving and hopefully Kerby Joseph can return at some point and help it improve even more. It was a good win to get and onto Minnesota next week. Thank you for reading.
Stars of the game:
Jameson Williams: 5 catches, 91 yards, 2 touchdowns
Amon-Ra St. Brown: 9 catches, 153 yards
Aidan Hutchinson: 1 sack, 1 pass defended, 5 QB hits
Brian Branch: 4 tackles, 1 interception
Other defensive standouts: Khalil Dorsey, D.J. Reed, Tyleik Williams
DeAndre Carter: 2 kick returns, 52 yards, 1 punt return, 15 yards. Could have had more return yards if not for penalties.
Image credit to the Detroit Lions, Fox Sports, and Yahoo sports