With the Rams pushing into the red zone on their first possession Sunday, Alim McNeill and Aidan Hutchinson combined to stuff a run on first down. On the next play, Hutchinson sniffed out a tight end screen, intercepted Matthew Stafford and returned it deep into Rams territory to set up the Lions' first touchdown.
Neither Hutchinson nor McNeill made much of an impact the rest of the way in Detroit's 41-34 loss. The entire defense was gouged on a day the Lions allowed a season-worst 519 yards to the top team in the conference.
“Now you have first-hand knowledge of what the top of the NFC looks like," said Dan Campbell. "That's them. So now you know. You know what it looks like, you know what it is. And we're not there right now. Doesn't mean we can't be, but we've got to get better. We've got to move on. Can't sulk about it, can't feel sorry for ourselves. We make the corrections and we move on."
The second half was a nightmare for the Lions. The third quarter, in particular: while the Rams piled up 179 yards and 8.2 yards per play, the Lions literally went backward, finishing with minus-five yards on seven plays. That turned a 24-17 lead for Detroit into a 34-24 deficit, and that was pretty much that.
In the locker room, Hutchinson's head still seemed to be spinning as he tried to make sense of what went wrong.
"Our second half, I’m trying to remember the drives. They were just having some success running the ball and then play-action off of that. I don’t know, I’d have to watch it. Everything was kind of happening really quickly, where it was not really going our way and we couldn’t find a way to stop the bleeding," Hutchinson said. "Definitely something we’ll have to look at."
Hutchinson did have a sack on third down to kill a Rams' drive late in the first half, bulling back a tackle and then spinning off a guard and tracking down Stafford at the line of scrimmage. But both Hutchinson and McNeill -- the Lions' two highest-paid players on defense -- were hard to notice in the second half when the Rams took hold of the game.
McNeill played 56 total snaps and did not show up in the box score.
"It was tough," he said. "It was a lot of stuff we were beating ourselves on, honestly. It was a good game by them. They did their thing, they executed, but it’s a lot of stuff we (did to) ourselves. They had a good plan, though."
Between McNeill, DJ Reader and first-round pick Tyleik Williams, the interior of the Lions' defensive line is supposed to be a strength. Those three combined for 115 snaps, three tackles and no quarterback hits. Especially late in the game, the defense was getting blown off the ball. Over a stretch of 10 rushes from the third quarter to the fourth, the Rams peeled off 7.9 yards per carry.
Stafford, meanwhile, threw for 368 yards and two touchdowns, with Puka Nacua going off for nine catches and a career-high 181 yards. Speaking of highly-paid defensive players, cornerback D.J. Reed was overmatched against a top receiver for the second week in a row.
But against a heavy offensive front, the defensive line didn't do enough to make Stafford uncomfortable.
"I feel like we did get him off his spot a couple times, but you could always use more (pressure)," said McNeill. "It is what it is: you give him time to make plays like that, it’s what they’re going to do. We have to come back to the drawing board and eliminate those explosive plays."
The defense sounded almost resigned to the outcome against a physically superior team. Hutchinson echoed McNeill and said, "Looked like it was going to be one of those offensive games where it just is what it is."
"And I thought we played pretty good in the first half with that in mind," he said, "but that third quarter was a little rough for us."
The playoffs are still on the table for Detroit, but not if the defense doesn't stiffen up from here on out. The Lions have yielded an average of 454 yards over the last four games. They are 4-5 since their 4-1 start, alternating wins and losses over a nine-game stretch for the first time in franchise history.
With three games to go, a 3-0 finish is a must. And even then, the Lions will need help.
"We knew what it was," said McNeill. "We knew what time it was, we knew it was real. It’s definitely more real now."