The Detroit Lions had quite a few head scratching calls against them in their contest against the Green Bay Packers, two of which led to touchdowns from their NFC nemesis. Eventually, the Lions ended up losing by one touchdown score.
Of course, Detroit's defense is a big reason for that, with their inability to get to Love much in the pocket and failure to stop the Toyotathon-powered Love in the passing game. Now, Detroit is on the outside looking in for the postseason.
Ndamukong Suh, the former Lions defensive tackle and now commentator, was on a UK-based show TKTK covering the contest. When the Packers managed to get away with calling a timeout after rookie tackle Anthony Belton had committed a false start. Camera angles on FOX clearly showed that head coach Matt LaFleur had called the timeout after Belton jumped, but the referees gave them the break.
“Should’ve that been a penalty on that offensive lineman? Without question. That timeout was not called prior to that infraction … Yes, you see LaFleur at the top of the screen on the left side, but Belton moved 10 years ago and then he called a timeout.”
Suh says what all Lions fans are thinking as refs screwed Lions again
This wasn't the first questionable call made by the referees in this contest. On a play prior, officials had ruled that a touchdown catch by Dontavious Wicks was valid, but he had clearly both stepped out of the end zone with his second step and bobbled the football at the same time. This should have been a no-touchdown call, but refs let it stand.
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While those two scores made the difference for Detroit, ultimately, their defense simply wasn't on point throughout the contest. At one point, they had 13 men on the field on defense, and at another, they had too few. It was always going to be a hard-fought game, but they didn't make life easy for the offense.
Now, the Lions have to hope that both Frank Ragnow comes back and is 80 percent of the player he was back in 2024, and that Amon-Ra St. Brown and Kerby Joseph's injuries don't bog them down even further on an extremely tough stretch ahead on their schedule. As of now, it sure looks like the Lions are battling it out for a Wild Card spot following this huge loss.