Good afternoon, everyone. On Thursday night, the Green Bay Packers took on the Detroit Lions at Lambeau Field. Entering this contest, the Packers and the Lions were both 2-1 and were looking to take the lead in the NFC North. It’s safe to say that the Packers had an embarrassing showing at home. Let’s get into detail on how this game went down.
Things started great for the Packers defense as they forced an interception of Jared Goff on the third play of the game. Rudy Ford took the pick and ran it to the Detroit 16 yard line before going out of bounds. The Packers had an opportunity to get a touchdown to open things up, but they only got a field goal out of the drive. They didn’t run the ball at all even though Aaron Jones was back from injury. Jordan Love got sacked on the second play, which is not good at all. The field goal was good from Anders Carlson, giving the Packers a 3-0 lead with 11:59 left in the first quarter. The Lions then went down the field in only 7 plays with pretty much no problem at all. The biggest plays from the Lions’ drive were a 35-yard catch and run by tight end Sam LaPorta that brought Detroit into scoring range and the play afterwards. Rasul Douglas slipped on the play, resulting in Amon-Ra St. Brown being wide open for the 24-yard touchdown catch. St. Brown leaped into the stands, resulting in some beer being poured onto him. No fan even bothered to push him down. The extra point was good, giving the Lions a 7-3 lead with 8:16 left in the quarter. The Packers did nothing on their next drive as they went three and out after three straight pass plays (one in which Love was sacked again). After the punt, the Lions went down the field from their own 45 yard line to the end zone for a second touchdown. David Montgomery ran it in from 3 yards out to finish the drive. The extra point was good, increasing the lead to 14-3 with 2:54 left in the quarter. After another three and out by the Packers offense, the Lions once again went down the field into scoring range. They made it all the way to the 4 yard line of Green Bay, but a holding penalty and an incomplete pass forced Detroit to settle for a field goal, which was good. The 17-3 lead increased quickly to 24-3 after Jordan Love was intercepted and the Lions offense turned that pick into a touchdown run by David Montgomery. Two more punts followed that TD, with the punt to Jayden Reed almost being a total disaster. The ball was bouncing and Reed muffed the catch, resulting in a scramble for the ball. Thankfully, the ball was recovered by Green Bay. Once again, the Packers couldn’t get anything done on offense and punted the ball away again. After the Lions went down the field and scored a field goal, the Packers had the ball with 34 seconds left. They got to a position for a Hail Mary, but Love was sacked before he could get the ball out of his hands, ending the half.
The Packers would have started their first third quarter drive near midfield, but a holding penalty nullified Keisean Nixon’s kickoff return. As a result, the Packers started at their own 14 yard line. Nonetheless, the Packers offense meticulously went down the field to start a comeback attempt. A 12-play, 86 yard drive ended with a 1-yard touchdown pass in which Christian Watson was wide open at the front left corner of the end zone. After the touchdown pass, the Packers went for two and got the points thanks to Jordan Love connecting with Jayden Reed. Thanks to that, the lead was cut to 27-11 with 8:17 left in the third quarter. The Packers defense forced a three and out, allowing the offense to get the ball back quickly. That momentum was ruined when Jordan Love threw a backwards pass that resulted in an 11 yard loss. After that, the drive ended in a three and out and they punted back to Detroit. Thankfully, the defense forced the Lions to punt again, giving Green Bay the ball back with 54 seconds left in the third quarter. The Packers got away with a non-call after the clock went down to zero on a deep pass from Love to Reed that brought the offense to the Detroit 9 yard line. 2 plays later, Love ran it in for the touchdown that cut the Lions’ lead to 10. They went for two again only for the play to come up short of the goal line (by the way, shoot the option play to the moon). The Packers defense let the Lions offense go down the field on their next drive, but they were able to keep them from scoring a touchdown. The field goal was good, but after the Amazon Prime broadcast came back to commercial, the refs said that there was a penalty against Quay Walker for jumping over the center and hitting him while jumping (I’ll talk about this later). The Lions accepted the penalty, resulting in a first and goal at the Green Bay 6. 4 plays later, David Montgomery ran it in for the touchdown that basically ended any chance for a comeback. With the Packers now down 34-17 with 6 minutes left, they did their best to get another score to make the final score less embarrassing. They got all the way to the Detroit 14 yard line before there was a communication mishap between Jordan Love and Romeo Doubs. Love threw the pass short as Doubs went upfield to the end zone, resulting in an easy interception and no points for the Packers. The defense forced the Lions to go three and out, and Keisean Nixon took the punt all the way to the Detroit 35 yard line. A sack of Jordan Love on the first play would have put the Packers out of field goal range, but they got those yards back on the second play. The third play resulted in an incomplete pass, which forced the Packers to settle for a field goal. Anders Carlson made it from 50 yards away, cutting the lead to 34-20 with 2:52 left in the fourth quarter. The Packers failed an onside kick attempt as the ball went out of bounds, giving the Lions the ball. After that, the Lions ran out the rest of the clock and gave the Packers their first home loss of the season. With this loss, the Packers are now down by one game in the division and 2-2 overall.
Offensively, the Packers didn’t play well at all. Yes, they made up some ground in the second half, but overall it was not good on Thursday night. 21 yards at the end of the first half is unacceptable, especially considering that Aaron Jones and Christian Watson were back from injury. I know that both of those players were on a snap count to play it safe. Jones only got 5 rushing attempts, which was the same as AJ Dillon’s number of attempts on the ground. They both combined for only 29 yards, while Jordan Love lost two yards. 27 rushing yards is inexcusable for the Packers. They should’ve ran the ball at the start of the game. Even when they ran the ball, which was inconsistent, the offensive line didn’t do a good job of giving the backs room to run. On some plays, the backs (mostly Dillon) were tackled right after they got the ball. In addition to the bad running game, the O-Line allowed Jordan Love to get sacked 5 times on Thursday night. The worst player on offense was Royce Newman, who plays right guard. He was dominated from start to finish. One play in particular was a run play where he got down and didn’t bother to block a linebacker that ended up getting to AJ Dillon. Had he blocked that guy, Dillon would have made a big play out of that run. Newman needs to be benched as of this moment. It didn’t help that Elgton Jenkins and David Bakhtiari were not able to play on Thursday night. Bakhtiari was put on injured reserve and will get surgery on his knee that hopefully allows him to play a full season next year. Even though he got sacked 5 times, Love made some good plays on Thursday night. He connected on some good passes to Jayden Reed, Christian Watson, and Romeo Doubs. Doubs led the receivers with 9 catches for 95 yards, while Reed had 3 catches for 55 yards. Watson had 2 catches for 25 yards and a touchdown on Thursday night. Love also threw two interceptions on Thursday night, which was not ideal. The worst pick was the one near the goal line in which there was miscommunication between him and Doubs. Overall, it was ugly on offense on Thursday night. Hopefully they start the next game (and the rest of the season) with a focus on getting the ground game up and running and then setting up the play-action stuff after that. I also hope that the option play is no longer used on offense.
Defensively, the Packers were not able to stop the Lions from doing whatever they wanted. Things looked good after the Rudy Ford interception, but it went downhill after that. On almost every run play, the Lions’ ball carriers were able to get some yards after contact. Jared Goff was only sacked twice as he threw check down after check down with the occasional deep pass. The Lions were able to get a total of 411 yards on offense, including 211 yards on the ground. David Montgomery led the Lions with 121 yards and 3 touchdowns on 32 rushing attempts. Those touchdowns were all near the goal line and were too easy for him thanks to the offensive line blocking very well. One of those touchdowns was set up by a scramble by Jared Goff that was embarrassing for the defense to allow. The only positive thing that I can think of (other than the sacks and 19 total tackles for Quay Walker) is that the Packers have a mini-bye week to prepare for the next game and how to stop the rushing attack of the Raiders. As much as I want Joe Barry to be gone, I think that he’ll be with Green Bay for the whole season. Hopefully he and the players get their stuff together and play tough physical defense.
On Special Teams, the Packers made a couple of huge mistakes. Jayden Reed made the mistake of touching the ball as it was bouncing on a punt, causing a scramble for the ball to occur. Thankfully, the Packers recovered the ball, but that was almost a turnover and would have made the game worse than what it was. What basically ended the comeback for the Packers was a penalty by Quay Walker in which he jumped over the center in an attempt to block the field goal. The problem was that he made contact with the center while jumping, which resulted in a penalty and an automatic first down for Detroit. I know that it is a penalty by Quay Walker and he should not have done that. The issue that made me irritated was that the penalty was called after the broadcast came back from a commercial break and the field goal was good. Regardless of that, stuff like that can’t happen ever again on Special Teams. In addition to making both of his field goals, Anders Carlson kicked a couple of balls out of the end zone for a touchback. I think that Carlson is doing great so far and I hope that continues (*knocks on wood*). Daniel Whelon had a couple of nice punts in addition to securing the hold for Carlson. Thankfully, the Packers didn’t allow any kicks to get blocked. Keisean Nixon didn’t return a kickoff back for a touchdown, but he did have a 34-yard punt return that allowed the Packers to get into scoring range late in the game. To be honest, when the ball is kicked deep into the end zone, Nixon should just kneel for a touchback or let the ball go out of the end zone. Some elements of Special Teams need to be improved from here on out, including penalties and certain choices on kick/punt returns. At least the Packers have over 10 days to prepare for the next game on all sides of the football.
Before I conclude this post, I want to go on a tangent regarding the unacceptable amount of Lions fans at Lambeau Field on Thursday night. This involves the season ticket holders belonging to the Gold Package. For those who don’t know, the Gold Package is for Packers fans who went to see their team play in Milwaukee for decades. From 1933 to 1994, the Packers played at least two home games per season in Milwaukee. For most of those years, they used the old Milwaukee County Stadium, which is where the Brewers baseball team played. When the Packers decided to play all of their home games at Lambeau Field starting with the 1995 season, the team and the city of Milwaukee decided on a compromise. That compromise was allowing the Packers fans living at or near Milwaukee season ticket access to the second and fifth home games of the season. The problem is that those season ticket holders are selling those seats to basically the highest bidder for some good money. Those highest bidders are usually the opposing team’s fans. With the Lions being a good team again, those Lions fans had no problem accepting the tickets and walking into Lambeau Field. I accept that there are going to be some road team fans at Lambeau Field. When I went to the game against the Cowboys in November of last year, there were a good number of Cowboys fans that came to Green Bay for that game. Unlike those fans, the fans that supported the Lions on Thursday night didn’t leave Lambeau Field disappointed. Also, watching the broadcast on Amazon Prime and seeing clips on social media, I could see that there was an unhealthy amount of “Honolulu Blue” in the stands on Thursday night. After the game was over, those fans stayed for the postgame show. It felt like over 10,000 Lions fans were at Lambeau Field. If the ticket holders are not able to make it to the game, they should at the very least make sure that the people that buy the seats are Packers fans and not opposing fans. There has to be something online that only allows Packers fans to buy other Packers fans’ seats so there is less opposing colors in the stands. The season ticket waiting list is long as heck, and the fact that any ticket holders can sell their seats to opposing fans is a slap in the face to those waiting for seats. The fans on that list deserve to have seats at Lambeau Field at some point in time. That’s it for my tangent.
Overall, it was not a great game at all for the Packers on Thursday night. They basically allowed the Lions to embarrass them on national television/Amazon Prime. Hopefully everyone involved figure out the mess and use the extra days to prepare for their next game. That next game will be on Monday October 9th in Las Vegas against the Raiders. Hopefully some players on the injury list, including Luke Musgrave (who left Thursday night with a concussion), Jaire Alexander, and Elgton Jenkins, can come back for that game. I’ll talk about that game later. In the meantime, I hope that you all have a great weekend. Win, lose, draw, I’ll be supporting the Packers until my last breath. Go Pack Go.
(Here are the “lowlights” for this game, provided by the NFL’s YouTube page. Click on “Watch on YouTube”.)
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