Detroit Lions Week 4 report card: Lions ride a near-flawless first half to a 34-20 win in Lambeau

Everyone has a plan until they get punched in the mouth. That was a lesson a young Green Bay Packers team learned the hard way at the hands of the Detroit Lions Thursday night. The score was 27-3 at halftime, and Detroit had 284 total yards to the Packers 20. It wasn’t competitive.

Despite the Packers making things interesting in the third quarter, score effects played a major role. The Lions were able to coast for much of the second half en route to a huge win. 

The Lions now sit at 3-1, first in the NFC North, with a tiebreaker on the Packers who now slide to second place at 2-2. Overall, it's pretty hard to envision a way Thursday night could have gone much better for Detroit.

Here are some grades for the Lions' Thursday night showing.

Detroit Lions Week 4 report card: A decisive win at Lambeau

Offense: 4/5 Stars

In a hostile environment, in a monumental game, the Lions needed their offense to come through. So naturally, the third play of the game was a Jared Goff interception. 

It was about as bad of a start as you can ask for. After that though? The offense looked incredible. They were firing on all cylinders, picking up chunks of yards on the ground and through the air while racking up points. 

Things cooled off in the second half, but Detroit burnt as much time as possible. Excluding the kneel-down at the end, the Lions had 42 rush attempts in this game. They were intent on grinding the game out and wearing the Packers down. 

Goff did what he had to in this game. It wasn’t always pretty, but he made a few really impressive throws. He took a couple of unnecessary sacks and had the aforementioned interception at the start of the game, but he was perfectly acceptable Thursday night. Certainly didn’t look like a poor man’s Matt Ryan. 

Offensive player of the game: David Montgomery

Not exactly the most conventional recipe to give a player returning from injury 34 total touches. That being said Montgomery did turn that into 141 yards and three touchdowns. This game was the definition of “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.”

A heavy dose of Montgomery was expected in this game. But even this seemed extreme. It’s unlikely this type of workload will repeat itself, but credit where credit is due. Montgomery earned the expanded workload. 

Was Montgomery overly efficient? No. But he was consistent and he fought for every yard. He really wanted this game and you could feel it. Now, after years of suffering against the Packers as a member of the Bears, he can finally say he beat Green Bay.