Green Bay, WI – November 7, 2017 – The Green Bay Packers had been defeated by the Detroit Lions at Lambeau Field just once since 1991 heading into a Monday Night matchup with their NFC North foe. After last night, that number has been pushed to 2, as the Packers were outplayed in all three phases en route to a 30-17 loss.
With Brett Hundley making his second career start in place of the injured Aaron Rodgers, thoughts were Mike McCarthy would open the playbook for the young quarterback. Coming off a bye week, it made sense since Hundley would presumably be more comfortable in the starting role.
Green Bay, home underdogs in the game, came out looking sharp. Their first drive lasted over 8 minutes, produced multiple first downs, but stalled at the Detroit 20 yard line. Then the wheels came off the cart. Facing 4th and 5, Green Bay sent out their field goal unit. The Packers lost their original long snapper due to injury prior to this game. With a new long snapper suited up, the snap failed to get to the holder, it was eventually picked up and put down but Crosby’s field goal was blocked, and the tide of the game turned.
The Packers defense was likely to be the crux considering the offensive struggles with Hundley at the helm in their two previous games. For the first two plays, things looked good. Detroit lost 4 yards on their first two plays. On 3rd and 14, Matt Stafford fired an incomplete pass out of bounds and the Lions would be forced to punt. After the play however, free agent signing Mike Daniels was called for an unsportsmanlike penalty for head butting former Packer T.J. Lang. It gave Detroit 15 yards and a new set of downs. The Lions capitalized by driving down the field and capping it off with a 25 yard touchdown pass from Matt Stafford to Marvin Jones to give the Lions a 7-0 lead.
The Packers were never able to recover.
The next two possessions ended in 3 and outs for the Packers offense. The Lions took advantage. Starting their third drive at their own 9 yard line, the Lions moved down the field through the air. Stafford went 6-6 on the drive which resulted in a 4 yard touchdown run by Ameer Abdullah to put the Lions up 14-0 with 2:47 left in the first half.
The struggles continued for Green Bay in the second half. The Packers defense could not get off the field. The Lions converted on 8 of the 13 first downs they faced and for the first time since 1971 never had to punt the football.
The Packers scored a touchdown with 9:52 remaining in the game to cut the Lions lead to 20-10, but the defense could not slow down Detroit. The Lions went 75 yards in just 1:46 in 4 plays to score and essentially ice the game. Both teams registered a couple of late non-consequential scores as the Lions walked away with the win 30-17.
The loss for the Packers, their third consecutive, drops them to 4-4 on the year. Green Bay now travels to Chicago to take on the Bears on Sunday, November 12 at 1:00pm. You can catch all the action on the air on your Marquette County Packers affiliate 98.3 WRUP.