GREEN BAY, Wis. – No statistic tells the story of Green Bay’s dismal loss to Detroit Sunday at Lambeau Field better than this one: The Packers had six drops. The Lions had four incompletions.
For all the talk early in Sunday’s supposed heavyweight matchup between arguably the NFC’s top two teams about how the Lions hadn’t played outside yet, it didn’t matter during a steady rainstorm. The Packers were far too sloppy to beat any respectable team, let alone one that might be the best in the league.
Six drops. Ten penalties, which tied the season. Three failed snaps. A dismal pick-six. A turnover on downs after the Packers couldn’t gain 1 yard on three straight plays. Don’t blame the rain, as it didn’t hinder the Lions (7-1) in their 24-14 win over the Packers (6-3), dropping Green Bay to 0-2 in the NFC North. The sea of Honolulu blue that turned up to “Jump Around” and chanted “Yes-red Goff” in garbage time was equally represented.
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“A lot of self-inflicted wounds, a lot of momentum killers, a lot of drive killers,” running back Josh Jacobs said. “That’s on us, man. I feel like we got away with a lot because we masked it a little bit with the wins, but when you play against a good team, all the little things catch up with you.”
The Packers wasted no time shooting themselves in the foot. Keisean Nixon returned the opening kickoff to the 40-yard line, but jammed his right hand into the face of Lions cornerback Kindle Vildor on the sideline well after the play, earning an unnecessary 15-yard roughness penalty.
“Totally unacceptable,” head coach Matt LaFleur said of Nixon’s punishment.
That was just a foreshadowing of the opening stage and of the entire match for that matter. On third-and-5 from the Lions’ 12-yard line later in the drive, quarterback Jordan Love threw running back Chris Brooks short over the middle, but Brooks still should have caught what would have resulted in a first down. The Packers settled for three points instead of seven on their third consecutive opening drive, which did not end in a touchdown after electing to start the game.
Green Bay also couldn’t make its first defensive play without a costly mistake. The Lions lined up as if to go for it on fourth down from the 5, seemingly with no intention of doing so and just to try to draw the Packers offside. It worked. Defensive tackle TJ Slaton jumped and moved the ball halfway across the goal line while still on fourth down. Instead of kicking a field goal after a stoppage of play, which the Lions seemed inclined to do, quarterback Jared Goff hit wide receiver Amon-Ra St. Brown on a fade with cornerback Keisean Nixon in coverage for a touchdown to take a lead in second place. Lions wouldn’t give up. Nixon followed St. Brown through the formation with jet moves and St. Brown feigned a stop route before running the fade and making a phenomenal catch on the left side of the end zone.
I have sunshine, on a cloudy day 😎#DETVsGB 📺 FOX pic.twitter.com/ZuMG3uJuMa
— Detroit Lions (@Lions) November 3, 2024
St. Brown wore a sweatshirt Sunday as he walked into the stadium that read “GREENBAY SUCKS.” Nixon was asked about St. Brown’s sweatshirt after the game and said, “I didn’t see it.” I mean, he’s a clown. It’s just the way it is.” Nixon may think St. Brown is a clown, but the message on his sweatshirt, at least regarding the football team’s sharpness, was not wrong.
The Packers had a chance to respond and started their next drive with a 37-yard Jacobs run. But a false start on right guard Sean Rhyan, with the Packers facing third-and-3 from the Detroit 32-yard line, preceded an incomplete bomb to wide receiver Christian Watson in double coverage. The Packers kicked instead of attempting a 55-yard field goal in the rain.
LaFleur has complained about his team’s pre-snap penalties this season, and there were several more on Sunday, including Slaton’s costly foul in the neutral zone and a whopping four false starts.
“I think you can definitely put that in the focus category, where we need to be better,” LaFleur said of the false start penalties. “Some of them are completely unnecessary. We go on a double cadence and that is an advantage in case of a violation. I never want us not to do that. I think that’s an important part. That’s your only advantage on offense: you decide when the ball snaps. That’s a big advantage when you’re at home and there’s not as much crowd noise.”
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The Packers couldn’t even capitalize when the Lions tried to give them a gift-wrapped scoring opportunity. Detroit safety Brian Branch was flagged 15 yards for going helmet-to-helmet on wide receiver Bo Melton on a second-and-20 pass. Melton fell deep down the left sideline. Branch was flagged another 15 yards for unsportsmanlike conduct after being ejected for targeting. That gave the Packers a first-and-10 at the Detroit 32-yard line, but wide receiver Romeo Doubs made another false start on first and tight end. Tucker Kraft dropped a pass on third down before kicker Brandon McManus missed a 46-yard field. goal wide left to keep the score at 7-3.
“You’ve seen in the past what happens when we shoot ourselves in the foot in crucial games,” Kraft said. “The Lions are too good of a team to make the mistakes we made.”
Oh, you thought the debilitating mistakes were made? Not even close.
The Lions scored three points after McManus’ miss and the Packers got the ball back with 58 seconds left and one timeout on their 30-yard line in a 10-3 deficit, with the Lions getting the second half kickoff . On the second play of the drive, Love tried to check the ball up the middle to Jacobs on second-and-2, but safety Kerby Joseph picked off six to give the Lions a 17-3 lead. Love’s second confusing pick in the past month was his league-leading 10th interception this season.
“I came out of the bag. Obviously Josh was blocking, protecting, and I saw him trying to get out and trying to throw it down,” Love said. “It was a check-down for him and the ball didn’t go where I wanted it to. They played it well…I didn’t see it (Joseph) when I threw it. Like I said, I just saw Josh trying to get out of there. Like I said, the ball didn’t go where I wanted it to. And yes, critical error.”
Jordan Love says his throw on the pick-six didn’t go where he wanted. I saw Josh Jacobs on the checkdown, but didn’t see Kerby Joseph on the play. pic.twitter.com/sYO6XlLnMB
— Matt Schneidman (@mattschneidman) November 4, 2024
What has already been written is enough words for a full story, but that was just the first half of the Packers getting in their own way.
Nixon’s third-down holding penalty on the opening drive of the second half turned a punt into a first down. On the next drive, Love’s third down pass, which would have set up a first down pass, would hit wide receiver Dontayvion Wicks square in the chest before falling to the grass. Love dropped two consecutive errant snaps from left guard center Elgton Jenkins on second and third downs (starting center Josh Myers missed the game with a wrist injury), the latter forcing the Packers to settle for a field goal while trailing by 21.
“The ball was wet. My hand was wet. It was wet,” Jenkins said. “It slipped out of my hand.”
The Packers didn’t seem to use the weather as an excuse after the game, but more of a justification. Yet a team that had yet to play offside braved the elements. The team that calls Lambeau Field home collapsed on them.
Perhaps the most egregious self-inflicted wound — that is, something on a day full of them — came from Love and Wicks on third-and-1 from Detroit’s 9-yard line, with the Packers trailing by 18 and clinging to life. Love executed Aaron Rodgers’ patented guitar fake perfectly and had Wicks wide open in the end zone. As he rolled to his right, Love threw something behind Wicks – still a more-than-catchable pass. It went right through Wicks’ hands again, and Jacobs got stuffed on the ensuing fourth-and-1 to essentially seal the game.
According to Pro Football Focus, the Lions had one drop in the game. Wicks now has six on the season after his two precious Sundays. Wicks was far from the only hurdle for the Packers on Sunday, but that comparison serves as a microcosm for what we saw at Lambeau Field.
These teams entered the game as relative equals, but the final margin of 10 points doesn’t tell you how far apart they really appear to be. Not because the Lions dominated with their play. They didn’t. But because great football teams don’t do everything the Packers did wrong: the six drops, the ten penalties, the three botched snaps, the head-scratching pick-six.
Jordan Love stands up after throwing an interception that was returned for a touchdown by Lions safety Kerby Joseph on Sunday. (Mark Hoffman/Imagn Images)
They didn’t just commit pre-snap penalties on Sunday. They have the second-most in the NFL with 30 as of Sunday night. They didn’t just drop passes because it was raining. That was also a problem before Sunday. And Love didn’t just throw an isolated, costly interception against the Lions. He has put the ball in danger far too often since the start of the season.
If the Packers clean up all these mistakes, can they compete with the Lions? Naturally. Last season they suffered a similar defeat to Detroit at Lambeau Field and then defeated them convincingly on Thanksgiving at home before falling a quarter away from meeting them in the NFC Championship Game in Detroit. There’s still plenty of season left and there are worse places to be than 6-3. But that requires the Packers to heal whatever ails them right now, especially themselves, and that’s not as easy as it sounds.
“As players, we keep making the same mistakes and we have to figure that out,” safety Xavier McKinney said. “I can’t keep saying it. We just have to figure it out. We have to do it and we have to stop making all these mistakes because we are playing against other good teams, we cannot afford these kinds of mistakes. We cannot afford fines. We can’t afford to have sales and not get sales. It’s just a lot of stuff that’s built up and we just gotta make corrections, man. That’s all I have for it.”
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(Top photo: Dan Powers / Imagn Images)
