Packers Lose Again to Lions: Snaps, Stud, Dud, Defining Play

Who played (by far) the most snaps of his career? Let’s dig into Green Bay’s 34-31 loss to the Lions with snap counts, stats, studs and duds.

Detroit Lions running back David Montgomery (5) runs for a first down against Green Bay Packers on Thursday. / Junfu Han / USA TODAY NETWORK via Imagn Images

DETROIT – The Green Bay Packers lost 34-31 to the Detroit Lions on Thursday night. What injury led to a surprising snap count? What was the biggest shortcoming on defense?

Let’s take a deeper look at the playing time with additional postgame analysis.

Snaps on Offense

Out of 50

Running backs: Josh Jacobs played 40, Chris Brooks played 14 and Emanuel Wilson got only three. Jacobs got the ball on almost half of his snaps (18); Brooks and Wilson got one apiece.

Receivers: With Romeo Doubs inactive, Christian Watson played 46 eventful snaps with a big fumble, big catch and big penalty. Dontayvion Wicks, who had a good game, played 39 but exited after taking a big hit on the final scoring drive. Jayden Reed played a season-low 25 after a season-low 26 a week earlier. Bo Melton played nine and Malik Heath six.

Tight ends: As usual, Tucker Kraft was a stalwart with 44 snaps. He has played 80 percent of the snaps in 11 of 13 games. Ben Sims played 18 and John FitzPatrick six.

Offensive line: Four of the five starters went the distance; Sean Rhyan missed eight snaps during Green Bay’s first touchdown drive, with Kadeem Telfort stepping in at right guard.

Snaps on Defense

Out of 80

Defensive ends: Kingsley Enagbare and Rashan Gary, the starters, led the way with 42 and 41 snaps, respectively. Lukas Van Ness, even while missing time with a thumb injury, played 35 after getting a total of 40 the previous two games. Apparently his productive play the previous two weeks was rewarded. Arron Mosby played a season-high 22 snaps; he played seven snaps in the first eight games, followed by 10, 11, 14 and 22. Brenton Cox played 21, right at his average the past four games.

Defensive tackles: Kenny Clark, who perhaps played his best game of the season as the centerpiece of a strong night against the run, played by far the most snaps with 52. TJ Slaton played a season-high 43 snaps; he played a total of 45 the previous two games. They were well ahead of Devonte Wyatt (26), Karl Brooks (25) and Colby Wooden (13). Wyatt had three sacks in the first three games but none in his six games since returning from an ankle injury.

Linebackers: Isaiah McDuffie went the distance and Quay Walker got one snap on the bench after his personal foul. Eric Wilson played 44 and Ty’Ron Hopper was limited to special teams.

Cornerbacks: Keisean Nixon played 79 on defense and 12 more on special teams. Carrington Valentine started and continued his series-by-series rotation with Eric Stokes. When Javon Bullard suffered an ankle injury, that meant more snaps for both, so Valentine played 46 and Stokes 42. Bullard played 30 in the slot before the injury.

Safeties: Xavier McKinney went the distance – including special teams, he played 92 – and Evan Williams played 27 before exiting with a concussion. The adjustment after Williams went down was inserting Zayne Anderson at safety rather than moving Bullard out of the slot. So, Anderson played 53 snaps. Anderson, who entered the NFL as an undrafted free agent in 2021, had played eight defensive snaps in his career.

Stud

Lions coach Dan Campbell. You could go with tight end Tucker Kraft, who took a licking and kept on ticking, or defensive tackle Kenny Clark, but how can you not admire how Campbell coaches the Lions?

On fourth-and-1 in the final moments, the logical call would have been kicking the go-ahead field goal. Instead, fearing Jordan Love getting about 40 seconds to drive the Packers to the overtime-forcing field goal, Campbell kept the offense on the field. The Lions got the first down and won the game on the final play.

“That’s how Dan has done it throughout the course of his career, and so it doesn’t necessarily surprise me, but that gave us an opportunity there,” Packers coach Matt LaFleur said. “Hats off to them. They executed and we didn’t.”

Detroit went 4-of-5 on fourth down, a big reason why it controlled the ball for 31 more plays and won by a field goal.

Dud

Screen Defense. Jared Goff was 7-of-7 for 57 yards on screens. Again and again, the Lions turned to the screen game, either to convert on third down or set up fourth-and-short.

That came to a head on the final series. On third-and-6 from the 36, Jahmyr Gibbs caught a screen at the 41 and weaved his way through the defense for the necessary 6 yards to get a critical first down at the 2-minute warning.

As a whole, Green Bay’s underneath pass coverage was slaughtered.  

Defining Play

On fourth-and-1 from the Packers’ 21 with 43 seconds to go, Jared Goff stumbled and fell at the snap but managed to get the ball to David Montgomery, who had clear sailing to the pivotal first down because Penei Sewell knocked Brenton Cox off the ball, then sealed Quay Walker at the second level.

“I just felt like we needed to end it on offense,” Lions coach Dan Campbell said. “I did not want to give that ball back, and I believed we could get that. I believed we could convert, and I trust that O-Line, I trust David, and they came through for us. I knew how I wanted to play this game, the team knew it, and everything in me told me, ‘Let’s finish this,’ and so we did.”

Goff appreciated the trust in Campbell.

“Bigger than anything. That’s all you want from a head coach is to believe in you, and that gives us that little extra oomph to want to make it happen,” Goff said. “I’m not the one running or blocking, but I’m sure those guys up front say, ‘All right you’re giving it to us to make this game and finish this game off on our terms.’ Yeah, it means a ton.”

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