Good evening, everyone. On Monday night, the Green Bay Packers took on the Detroit Lions at a fully packed Lambeau Field. The Packers were looking for a bounce back victory after being blown out in Week 1. They did just that, taking care of business against the Lions and getting their first win of the 2021 season. Without further delay, let’s get right into the details of what transpired on Monday Night Football.
Once again, the defense got off to a bad start as they let the Lions score a touchdown on their first possession. During the drive, Packers CB Kevin King was beat on a deep pass again. This time, it was a connection from Jared Goff to Quintez Cephus that got the Lions to scoring range. A couple of plays later, Cephus was wide open for a 5-yard touchdown catch that gave the Lions a 7-0 lead. That lead did not last long, as the Packers offense went down the field and scored a touchdown on their first drive. RB Aaron Jones got most of the touches during the 11-play, 75-yard drive, including the touchdown pass from Aaron Rodgers. The pass was kinda like a shovel pass from Rodgers to Jones. With the score (plus an PAT kick by Mason Crosby), the Packers tied the game at 7-7 with 3:45 left in the first quarter. Detroit’s second offensive possession was cut short by penalties and the Packers defense. Following two first downs, the Lions suffered 3 penalties that ultimately ended the drive in its tracks. First was a false start penalty on TJ Hockensen. Next was a holding penalty on rookie OL Penie Sewell. A couple of plays later, Jared Goff was pressured by Preston Smith to throw the ball away. The officials made a decision to call Intentional Grounding on Goff. That penalty did not matter as it was on third down. After a false start penalty on fourth down, the Lions punter back to Green Bay. Amari Rodgers only returned the punt two yards before getting tackled at the 18. The Packers offense went three and out thanks to a missed deep shot to Marquez Valdes-Scantling on first down and a sack of Rodgers on third down. After the punt, the Lions took over at their own 39 yard line. During this possession by Detroit’s offense, Packers linebacker De’Vondre Campbell was called for pulling Jared Goff‘s facemask. It was an obvious penalty and it gave the Lions a free first down. 5 plays later, Hockensen caught an 8-yard touchdown pass from Goff. With that score, plus the extra point kick by Austin Seibert, the Lions took back the lead at 14-7 with 7:22 left in the first half. Once again, the lead did not last long as the Packers offense drove down the field for their second touchdown. The drive started at their own 44 thanks to a great kick return by Kylin Hill. Rodgers and the offense took care of the rest, scoring a touchdown after a 10 play drive. Aaron Jones caught a 1-yard touchdown from Rodgers and then celebrated with the crowd by doing a Lambeau Leap (which was sorely missed in 2020 due to the pandemic). The touchdown (plus the extra point) tied the game at 14-14 with less than 2 minutes before halftime. The Lions went down the field for a score before halftime. However, they had to settle for a field goal after Quintez Cephus could not hold on to a catch in the end zone. The field goal gave the Lions a 17-14 lead at halftime. Little did they know that this field goal would be the last points the Lions scored on Monday night.
Green Bay’s offense started their first possession on their own 13 after AJ Dillon was called for holding on Kylin Hill’s kick return. Even with the bad field position, the Packers offense went down the field in just 8 plays. Most of those yards were gained on a 50-yard catch and run by Davante Adams that was thrown by Aaron Rodgers. 3 plays after that catch and run, Rodgers threw a 22-yard touchdown pass to Robert Tonyan, who was not very open at all. The touchdown gave Green Bay their first lead of the season at 21-17. The Lions offense went down the field to try to answer back with another touchdown, but they were stopped by the Packers defense. They decided to go for it on fourth and 1 from the Green Bay 25, but did not get it due to an incomplete pass by Jared Goff. From there, the Packers offense took over. During this particular possession, Rodgers caught the Lions defense with 12 men on the field. He used the free play to connect with Randall Cobb for a 14-yard pass completion, which was enough for a first down. Later in the drive, Rodgers connected with Davante Adams while on his feet. Adams made a great leaping catch on the play, which ended at the Detroit 11. A couple of plays (and penalties) later, Rodgers connected with Aaron Jones for an 11-yard touchdown pass that increased the lead to 28-17. A Jared Goff fumble on the first snap of the next Lions drive (which was recovered by Krys Barnes) set Green Bay up for another touchdown. A 5-play, 23-yard drive ended with a one-yard touchdown run by Aaron Jones (his fourth touchdown overall, which he accomplished against the Cowboys in Week 5 of 2019). The touchdown gave the Packers a 35-17 lead that they would not give up. After both teams exchanged punts, Jared Goff threw an interception to De’Vondre Campbell. Campbell returned the pick to the Green Bay 45, where the Packers would have had a chance to run the rest of the clock out. On third and 2 from the Detroit 47, Rodgers tried to get a deep shot to Valdes-Scantling. The pass was overthrown, forcing Green Bay to punt the ball away and giving the Lions one more chance to get some garbage time points. Thankfully, the defense made sure that did not happen. On fourth and 3 from the Green Bay 32, Jared Goff tried to connect with Trinity Benson. Rookie CB Eric Stokes made the play on the ball, denying the Lions any points and sealing the 35-17 win for the Packers.
With the win, the Packers are now 1-1 on the season. It was a great win in front of the home crowd that cheered loud for Green Bay. Even with some rain during the game, the Packers found a way to score 5 touchdowns on the night. Aaron Jones (23 touches for 115 scrimmage yards) accounted for 4 of those touchdowns (3 passing, 1 rushing). In my opinion, the Packers works best when Aaron Jones is involved a lot. Aaron Rodgers had a great game, completing 22 of 27 passes for 255 yards and 4 touchdowns. His best TD pass was the needle to Robert Tonyan that gave the Packers the lead in the third quarter. Even though he took a couple of sacks and overthrew MVS on a couple of deep pass attempts, I thought that Rodgers played well on Monday night. Davante Adams led the receivers with 8 catches for 121 yards, including the 50-yard catch and run that set up the Tonyan TD catch. Randall Cobb added 3 catches for 26 yards, including the 14-yard completion after Rodgers caught the defense with 12 men on the field. I also thought that the offensive line did a good job on Monday night. The two rookies (Royce Newman and Josh Myers) will get more accustomed in due time. That being said, Josh Myers did well when it came to hiking the ball when Rodgers wanted it. Hopefully the offense gets even better as the season goes on.
At first, the defense was pretty much the same as in the Saints game. They gave up a couple of long scoring drives in the first half. In the second half, however, they played a lot better. The pass rush was able to pressure Jared Goff a few times into a couple of bad throws. The defense technically got a sack after Jared Goff hurriedly recovered a fumble after the ball slipped off his hand. One of Green Bay’s touchdowns in the second half was set up by the botched snap that was recovered by Krys Barnes. The interception was a great play by De’Vondre Campbell (who also finished with 13 tackles on the night) that sealed the win. Eric Stokes had a couple of pass breakups against the Lions, including on the final play for Detroit’s offense that prevented a touchdown. I am hoping that Stokes gets more playing time over Kevin King at some point this season. Overall, I thought that the defense played well after halftime. Hopefully they play great for all 4 quarters (same with the offense).
Other than a couple of penalties, including one that called back a nice kick return by Kylin Hill, I thought that Special Teams played well again. Mason Crosby made all of his kicks, while Corey Bojorquez had a couple of punts that went inside the Lions 20 yard line. If it wasn’t for the holding penalty on AJ Dillon, Kylin Hill would have had two nice kickoff returns. The one that had no flags almost got to the 50 yard line. What was also good to see was no blocked kicks or big returns given up by Green Bay, in addition to no turnovers. As long as they continue to limit the mistakes, I think that the Special Teams will be good from here on out.
Overall, it was a great win for the Packers at Lambeau Field. 21 unanswered points in the second half definitely made me happy. The schedule is only going to be tougher from here. For their next game, the Packers have to once again travel to Santa Clara, California to take on the San Francisco 49ers on Sunday Night Football. I will talk about that game in a few days. In the meantime, I wish you all a great night. Go Pack Go!
(Here are the highlights of the game, provided by the NFL’s YouTube page.)
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