Missed opportunities
The Detroit Lions were clearly the better team on Monday Night. They just didn’t have the benefit of the officials on their side. But learning how to close out opponents is how good teams avoid having games decided by the officials. If the Lions had done their job and actually gotten into the end zone a couple of more times, then all the assistance the Packers offense got from the zebras would have been a moot point.
It’s called taking matters out of the official’s hands and winning a game they clearly had every right to win, by being opportunistic and taking care of business when they had the chances to. The opposite end of that statement is that when the Packers were given a reprieve by the officials, they took advantage of it.
So while the officials basically decided the outcome of the game by all the game-changing penalties going against Detroit, the Lions did have the power to write their own ending if they had just been able to score touchdowns instead of field goals.
While the players were understandably upset at the atrocity that was called the officiating, and rightfully so, the answer they almost all to a man gave about how they needed to get back to work and play better next week was the right mindset.
The defense had the right game plan and executed it pretty well. In general, they controlled what Aaron Rodgers and the Packer offense was able to do. They had them on the ropes several times only to be bailed out by the officials.
Meanwhile, the Lions offense started off with a bang and then slowly unraveled. The first two deep passes they hit on against the Packer defense were explosive and had Lions fans out of their seats and believing that this was going to be Detroit’s night.
Yet the Lions were unable to run the ball with any kind of real success, despite the fact the Packers aren’t exactly all that good against the run. Which hurt the ability to build upon the run with the play-action pass. In essence, Matthew Stafford had to go to the air and Green Bay’s defense knew it.
As the game wore on the execution, poor pass blocking, dropped passes and some bad throws by Stafford, all came back to haunt the Lions offense.