Packers coach Matt LaFleur didn’t want to make a bad day worse by getting fined. Asked Sunday about the controversial calls during his team’s 20-17 loss to the NFC North rival Lions, he went full Marshawn Lynch.
“I can say what I really think, but I don’t think it does any good,” LaFleur said. “So it is what it is. You’ve just got to overcome it.”
The Packers had a chance to move beyond two roughing-the-passer penalties, including one on the Lions’ game-winning drive, and an unnecessary-roughness call in which the official threw the flag while lying on his back, having been knocked over by players after he believed the play had ended. It was as simple as making their field goals. However, the Lions tipped Trey Smack’s 35-yard attempt in the fourth quarter after he’d previously missed a 26-yarder in the first. He also missed from 43 and 47 yards two weeks ago against the Bears. No NFL kicker has more missed field-goal attempts than Smack’s five this season.
It’s the perfect encapsulation of the NFC North through seven weeks. This is the best division in football, yet each team — including the Bears — has glaring flaws.
Glancing at the next three months, that’s both encouraging and a challenge to be solved. All four teams can, with a straight face, say they have Super Bowl aspirations. Whether it’s on the field or in the conversations their general managers will be having ahead of the NFL trade deadline on Nov. 10, they’ll be racing each other for position.
If the season ended today, all four teams would make the playoffs, with the unbeaten Vikings winning the division and earning a bye and the Bears, Lions and Packers holding the Nos. 5-7 seeds. Since the NFL switched to four-team divisions in 2002, no division has sent all four of its teams to the postseason.
None of these four is perfect, particularly the one on top. The Vikings (6-0), the last undefeated team in the league, also have the best defense. But their offense is more pedestrian than a crosswalk. They’re fourth-worst in the NFL in yards and passing yards, and their average of 20.8 points per game was the third-worst in the NFC through Sunday. Although quarterback Kyler Murray has improved, he has had a worse passer rating in each of the last two weeks than J.J. McCarthy, whom the Vikings traded to the Giants last month for a song.
The Vikings’ 16-10 victory over the Colts on Sunday was the fourth time this season an NFL team won with 16 or fewer points and 275 or fewer yards, and the Vikings have done it twice, with Week 2 against the Bears the other instance.
The Bears’ latest big flaw revealed itself Thursday, just as fans were celebrating what felt like the start of a blowout victory. Ahead by 13 points with three seconds left in the first half and the Patriots just past midfield, the Bears blitzed quarterback Drake Maye, who dumped the ball off to running back Rhamondre Stevenson for a sprinting touchdown up the right sideline. Stevenson was touched once when cornerback Jaylon Johnson nicked his undershirt.
Of 76 cornerbacks who have played at least half their team’s snaps, Johnson’s coverage grade was 72nd, according to Pro Football Focus. Rookie teammate Malik Muhammad ranked 62nd.
The Bears give up 20.4 points per game, ninth-fewest in the NFL. They can, at times, look dominant, thanks to a killer third-down package and coordinator Dennis Allen’s knack for unusual blitzes. But what happens when they can’t get to the passer? What happens when those blitzes don’t land? What happens when Allen’s gambles don’t pay off?
Lions coach Dan Campbell certainly knows that feeling. He decided to go for it twice on fourth down Sunday, costing the Lions points the first time and nearly costing them the game the second, spared only by some good fortune. With about a minute left in the third quarter and the Lions ahead by three, Campbell called a pass play on fourth-and-goal from the Packers’ 6-yard line rather than kick a field goal. It failed. Then, with about five minutes left in a tie game, Campbell got absolutely ridiculous. going for it on fourth-and-one from his own 24. Running back Jahmyr Gibbs was stuffed for a two-yard loss. Smack’s field-goal kick was tipped four plays later.
Campbell explained his two-point rationale for the second call: One, he thought they’d make it, and, two, he knew they’d get the ball back regardless. By that rationale, he should have just handed the Packers the ball and told them to score.
The Lions give up more yards per game than any team in the NFL. Their coach leads the league in hubris. If the former doesn’t doom them, the latter might.
Not that the Lions were apologizing after kicking a field goal as time expired to win their first NFC North game of the season.
“They all count the same, [whether] we play this game now or later in the year with the division on the line,” quarterback Jared Goff said.