“The best team didn’t win”

If you just look at the stats from Sunday's Green Bay-Detroit game, you might think the Packers came away with the win. Instead they were beaten up.

Matt LaFleur's team outgained Detroit by 150 yards (411 to 261), generated more first downs (20 to 17), averaged more yards per play (6.6 to 4.7), and had 136 more passing yards (273 to 137) and only punted twice. However, the game was not over for almost the entire second half.

“A lot of self-inflicted wounds, a lot of momentum killers, a lot of drive killers,” running back Josh Jacobs said, via the team’s official website. “It’s all on us, man. I feel like we got away with a lot of that because we kind of masked it with the wins. But when you play against a good team, all the little things make up for you.”

The Packers committed 10 penalties for 67 yards, many of which stalled promising drives. According to Next Gen Stats, Green Bay's receivers dropped five passes. Brandon McManus missed a field goal. Elgton Jenkins, playing center in place of the injured Josh Myers, struggled with snaps in the rain. The defense was shattered early on the ground. And Jordan Love, dealing with a groin injury, committed the cardinal sin by throwing a terrible pick-six late in the second quarter that allowed Detroit to put the game away.

“Putting the ball in danger way too often, and I definitely have to clean that up,” Love said of his game. “I've talked about it week in and week out, so I just have to learn from those mistakes and clean it up, but definitely going forward I'm going to focus a lot on just finding ways to take care of the ball better.”

Love has now thrown at least one INT in each of his first seven starts in 2024. LaFleur begins to get annoyed by the questions about the QB's turnovers.

“I understand,” LaFleur said when asked about the INTs. “However, it’s really annoying up here. Obviously he fights, he competes and we know we have to take care of the football. But I don't question anything he tries. We just have to do it.” Do it better.