The Packers were marching on the Lions from the opening snap, a deep ball to Christian Watson. They averaged 10 yards per play on their first two drives, both of which ended in touchdowns. Their offense took control of Thursday's game and never gave it back in a 29-22 win that wasn't as close as the score would suggest.
"We knew exactly what type of game this was going to be," said quarterback Jordan Love. "We knew what happened the first time we played them, so we had their number and we’ve been waiting for this game for a while."
The Lions bullied the Packers back in September, on both sides of the ball. This time the roles were reversed. The opening play really did set the tone: Love had all day in the pocket to launch a 53-yard bomb to Watson, who was open downfield between Cam Sutton and Tracy Walker. The Packers would control the line of scrimmage the rest of the game. The Lions would yield air space and yards to a cast of unproven receivers.
"They do a good job of loading the box and stopping the run," said Packers head coach Matt LaFleur. "So we knew that we were going to try to have to open up the run through the pass. They’re a very aggressive unit."
There were no surprises in the Packers' offense. Kerby Joseph said "they did what we saw on tape," only Detroit couldn't stop them. Love was completing less than 60 percent of his throws on the season, then completed nearly 70 percent Thursday. He entered the game with a career passer rating of 83.0, then posted a career-high mark of 125.5. He'd been sacked 12 times in the prior four games and was hardly even touched by the Lions, who were blanked in the sack department for the fourth time this season.
Aside from binges against the Raiders, Falcons and Packers earlier this year, the Lions have five sacks in eight games. Aidan Hutchinson and Alim McNeill have been the only true threats up front, proven by the fact they were the only two players mentioned by LaFleur when he paid lip service to the Lions' defensive line "led by Hutchinson and then you’ve got McNeill, and a bunch of other guys that are really good football players." Right now, a bunch of other guys is rather apt.
Asked about Detroit's sputtering pass rush, Dan Campbell said, "Same guys we've had here and we've been able to generate pressure, so this unit’s going to be just fine. These are our guys, man. And these guys can do it and they’ve done it. That same team we just faced, we went to Green Bay and we were able to create pressure. We weren’t able to do it today."
Nor was the secondary able to effectively cover. Love did make some high-level throws and his receivers made some contested catches, but the Lions also allowed too many easy completions. They afforded a young quarterback too many open targets. Sutton and Jerry Jacobs were obvious culprits in man coverage, but Detroit's safeties did little to help.
"It just comes down to winning our one-on-one battles and holding ourselves accountable for the mistakes that’s going on in the backend," Joseph said. "We just need our playmakers to make plays, myself included. I didn't do a good job getting around the ball, I didn’t no get turnovers, nothing."
The Lions' lack of takeaways is exactly where Campbell pointed the finger. He said it's "something that we desperately have to work on." Detroit caught fire in the second half of last season thanks largely to a plus-12 turnover margin in its final 10 games. The team is minus-five this season, with 12 takeaways in 11 games.
"Not getting those enough right now," said Campbell. "To me that’s a mindset and it’s something we have to work on. Have we worked on it? Yeah, but not enough. There’s a different way to emphasize it, I believe that. That, to me, is where the emphasis has to go for us defensively. We got the guys, we got the coaches, but we gotta get better there. We gotta find a way to get some takeaways.”
And how do they do that?
"Getting to the ball, man, that’s really where takeaways come from," said Joseph, who had four interceptions and two forced fumbles last season. "If you’re living right, man, they come. You just gotta to the ball, every single time. First person in getting the tackle, second person in getting the punch-out. And if the ball is in the air, it is ours. It is ours. It shouldn’t be nobody's but the defense’s."
Asked if the Lions are close to making those plays, Joseph said, "It's a game of inches, so I feel like we very close. You just gotta be at the right spot at the right time and when your times comes, you gotta make the play.
"And me, I gotta make plays out there because everybody depends on me to make plays. That’s why I’m here and that’s what I’m going to continue keep doing. Today I didn't have the brightest days, but there’s going to be better days always."
It's all tied together. Campbell acknowledged it himself. When the Lions were generating takeaways last season, "we were playing tough, man, we were pressuring the quarterback, affecting him." That's one of the surest ways to create turnovers, by forcing the man with the football into bad decisions. The Lions haven't done that nearly enough this season. Everybody's culpable, from the front to the back.
"So when we come back, everybody’s going to be challenged, as well as myself," Campbell said. "And everything has to start with the turnovers. We can’t turn the ball over and we gotta find a way to get takeaways. Let’s start there and then we’ll figure the rest out.”