It was, obviously, a disappointing result for the Packers to open Week 14, losing a tense, back-and-forth game to the NFC North rival Detroit Lions, one that essentially ends Green Bay’s chances of catching the division-leaders down the stretch of the season. The final was 34-31, thanks to a last-second field-goal by the Lions to seal the win.
While the game pushes the Lions further ahead as the favorite to win the NFC this season, it was not a total washout for the Packers, who looked much better this time around than in the Week 9 loss the team suffered at Lambeau Field, by a 24-14 score. The Packers were a couple of plays away from pulling out this win.
And for coach Matt LaFleur, that was the important thing to pull out from the loss. In his postgame press conference, at which he can often be testy after a loss, LaFleur was relaxed and revealed what he said to players after the game–that they could well find themselves back in Detroit in the playoffs in a bit more than a month.
“I told our team, we are going to have to earn the right to come back,” LaFleur said. “It’s not going to be easy. But I am confident in the resiliency of our group, and that they’re going to continue to fight to stay together, stay connected because I do think we have a pretty good football team.”
Lions 4th Down Plays Were Critical
One of the critical features of this one was the aggressive stance taken by Lions coach Dan Campbell, who went for a first down five times on fourth-down plays. The Lions were successful on four of them, which was back-breaking for the Packers defense.
Detroit was 7-for-15 on third downs, but rather than getting the ball back on subsequent punts, the Packers have up four more first downs thereafter. It was costly for the Lions once, when they failed to convert a fourth down late in the third quarter, and set up a Packers touchdown.
But for the most part, the Lions pulled off the right plays, including a dramatic fourth down late in the game that was converted, and helped the Lions run down the clock to the final seconds before kicking the game-winner.
LaFleur said none of that surprised him.
“Maybe the one at the end of the game, a little bit,” he said. “But you know, that is how Dan has done it throughout the course of his career. It doesn’t necessarily surprise me. Hats off to them, they executed and we didn’t.”
Packers Rebounded Nicely
Probably the biggest downer for the Packers, LaFleur said, was the slow start. The Packers did well to shake it off and come back as the game progressed, but they were down, 10-0, before they got their offense going.
“I thought our guys did a good job coming out in the second half, kinda getting the momentum by going down, getting a touchdown, hitting the big play to Christian (Watson), then defensively getting the takeaway and converting that into points.
“Ultimately, I felt we just started, especially on the offensive side of the ball, too slow. We go punt, punt, fumble, then we score a touchdown. It is only a handful of plays that separate these types of games.”
