Packers Fall To Lions in Embarrassing Monday Night Performance.
Milwaukee, WI — After two pitiful performances against the Vikings and Saints, the Green Bay Packers had a much needed bye week in order to get all their ducks in a row for an intense Monday Night matchup against the Detroit Lions. They didn’t just flounder, they showed complete ineptitude on both sides of the ball as they fell in embarrassing fashion 30-17 at Lambeau Field.
The way the offense is functioning, the Packers should pay Aaron Rodgers a billion dollars per game. He is so valuable to his team that it is realistic to call him the most valuable player on any team, in any sport, period.
Base defense, nickel, dime, “nitro”, it doesn’t matter. The defense is more incapable than it has ever been in the Dom Capers’ era when it comes to rushing the passer and defending screen passes. They couldn’t force a single punt, let Matthew Stafford have his best game of the season, and couldn’t provide any pressure on the quarterback even with consistent corner and safety blitzes.
The Packers received the opening coin toss and immediately revealed what they had been working on during their bye week. They implemented almost every personnel package one can muster on their opening drive. It fell flat in the end, resulting in a blocked 38-yard field goal due to newly acquired long-snapper Derek Hart’s low, NFL career starting, snap, and a defensive lineman’s hand.
Most believed that with a couple games under his belt and with a full two weeks of preparation time, Hundley would be able to manage the offense the way we have seen him succeed in the preseason. It wasn’t until the game started getting out of hand that he started trusting his reads and pulling the trigger. Of his first 18 pass attempts only 13 traveled further than five yards. It was only after the Packers went into their two-minute drill at the end of the first half that they were able to get things going.
Hundley finished the game completing 26 of 38 passes for 245 yards and a passer rating of 86.0.
When you have the 27th ranked red zone offense going against the 31st ranked red zone defense, it’s not a matter of who will emerge victorious, it’s more of a who will screw up the least. Both teams took their licks, with Detroits’ running back Ameer Abdullah fumbling once in the red zone and once on the goal line before being benched. The Lions finished 2/4 in the red zone.
Stafford entered the game just 3-10 against Dom Capers, but it seems he has figured him out so well that he can turn the game into a 7-on-7 practice. Capers knew his front-four in nickel and dime package, and front-five in base packages could not provide adequate pressure, so he relied heavily on corner blitzes by Demarius Randall, and safety blitzes by Josh Jones and Morgan Burnett. They results were catastrophic. Stafford sniffed them out and got the ball out quickly on screen passes.
He finished the game 26 of 33 passes for 361 yards, two touchdowns passes, no interceptions and passer rating of 132.4. It was his 20th 350-yard passing game of his career, the most in history by a quarterback in his first nine seasons.
The Lions, who were coming off three consecutive losses, left Lambeau Field with only their second win on the road against the Packers since 1992. The have a favorable schedule over the next two weeks, facing two rookie quarterbacks in DeShone Kizer’s Browns and Mitchell Trubisky’s Bears.
The Packers on the other hand, are to face the Bears, Ravens and Steelers, three top-10 pass defenses.
If McCarthy’s offense can’t put a dent in a then 26th ranked Saints’ defense and now a 22nd ranked Lions’ defense, how much confidence should we have moving forward?