From Bad to Boneheaded, Packers’ Season Ends vs. Lions
GREEN BAY, Wis. – Run the table? How about trip over it.
Needing a victory to get into the NFL playoffs, the Green Bay Packers folded like a card table and lost to the Detroit Lions 20-16 on Sunday night.
With four consecutive wins, the Packers fought to keep their season alive. They threw it all away by shooting themselves in the foot for the better part of 2 hours and 59 minutes. For most of the season, quarterback Aaron Rodgers said the Packers were good enough to beat any team in the league and bad enough to lose to any team. The Packers weren’t just bad on Sunday. They were atrocious.
Against a defense that ranked 30th in scoring, the Packers scored one touchdown.
Against a defense that ranked 30th on third down, the Packers went 4-of-12.
Against a defense that ranked 30th in goal-to-go situations, the Packers went 0-for-1.
“The same things that hurt us all year, hurt us tonight,” Rodgers said.
Against a defense that ranked 30th in yards allowed per carry, the Packers managed a meager 3.7.
Keisean Nixon was bottled up on kick returns.
A defense that forced 12 turnovers the last four weeks forced zero.
Matt LaFleur went for it on fourth-and-1 from his own 32 in the first quarter because analytics. Never mind that getting a first down there would have left the Packers needing another 30 yards to get into long-distance field-goal range. The play, an end-around to Allen Lazard, was curious. The Lions turned that into a field goal to tie the game at 3.
“Not that we ever rely on analytics, but if you look at anything, they’re going to tell you to go for it in that situation,” LaFleur said. “We thought we had a look. Obviously didn’t. They played the heck out of the play and it ended up costing us.”
Lazard and AJ Dillon had drops on a drive in which the Packers settled for a field goal to lead 9-3.
Aaron Jones fumbled for a career-high fifth time, turning a potential two-score lead at halftime into a 9-6 margin at the break.
Aaron Rodgers threw his 12th interception after tossing 13 the last three seasons combined. His final throw of the season was one of those wing-and-a-prayers, not unlike the deep shot with the game on the line in last year’s playoff loss to San Francisco.
Taken in total, all of that ineptitude cost the Packers the game and a trip to the playoffs. But those are only bronze-medal candidates in the Stupid Packers Olympics.
Douglas handed the Lions a chip-shot field goal at the end of the first half when, after a timeout by LaFleur, he walked between the lines and knocked the ball from the hands of the long snapper, then hit one of the Lions’ blockers.
“My thing is, we call timeout. I’m not about to let you snap it and get a free kick. I’m not doing that,” Douglas said. “I’m not about to let you see and adjust. You already missed one earlier … so, I smacked the ball out of the center’s hand.
“70 (Dan Skipper) pushed me, and I pushed him. And (the officials) were like, ‘Well, we’ve got to call it on you. You know how it is, it’s the second one. So, I was like, ‘It’s all good.’ It’s always on the second person, it ain’t never on the first one. But that’s on me. I’m a way smarter player than that. I can’t allow him to push me and me get upset. I’ve just got to let it go. But I’m not letting nobody get a free kick. That’s essentially why I slapped the ball out of his hands.”
Then came the defining sequence. With Detroit trailing 16-13 but driving to a first down at Green Bay’s 11, running back D’Andre Swift caught a screen and gained 2 yards. On the play, defensive tackle Jarran Reed struck Swift with a forearm to the head. The training staff came to check on Swift. Linebacker Quay Walker stood behind one of the trainers and, inexplicably, shoved him into a couple other trainers.
So, instead of second-and-8 at the 9, it was first-and-goal at the 4 and Walker was ejected. Three runs by Jamaal Williams later, it was 20-16 with 5:55 remaining.
It was Walker’s second ejection of the season. According to ESPN Stats & Info, Walker became the first player in 15 years to be ejected twice in a season. That’s quite a feat considering, after he was ejected at Buffalo, he feared people would think he was a “bad guy” and was in tears.
“I’ve got a much higher standard for our players than to do silly things like that,” said LaFleur, his face red with anger. “We’ve had a guy get ejected twice. I don’t think I’ve ever seen that in my career. We’ve got to be much more mentally tough. Any time our guys commit personal fouls, I take that very personally because I think that’s always a reflection of myself and the standards that we set for these players. And we’ve got to be better and we’ve got to learn from that because that is unacceptable.”
A couple minutes later, Rodgers was intercepted. A couple minutes after, the Lions converted a second-and-17 to clinch the win.
A long offseason has started early for Green Bay. There’s a lot of work to be done.
“I want to make sure that we cover everything with a fine-tooth comb and look at every facet of our program and what we’re doing and what we’re asking guys to do,” LaFleur said. “And not only that, but the standards and the expectations that we have in each area. I think that a lot of times when you have success, certain things can get covered up by winning games, and I think everything has pretty much been exposed right now. So, we’ll take a look at everything in terms of how we operate. It’s evident that whatever we did this year was not good enough.”
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