DETROIT LIONS at GREEN BAY PACKERS
LAMBEAU FIELD
WEEK 2: MONDAY, SEPT. 20, 2021
The following are post-game notes and quotes from the Detroit Lions’ 35-17 loss to the Green Bay Packers at Lambeau Field on Monday, Sept. 20, 2021.
POST-GAME NOTES
LIONS SCORING PLAYS
- First Quarter: QB Jared Goff threw a five-yard touchdown pass to WR Quintez Cephus on the Lions’ opening drive with
10:36 left on the clock. K Austin Seibert made the extra point. - Second Quarter: QB Jared Goff threw an eight-yard touchdown pass to TE T.J. Hockenson with 7:22 left on the clock. K
Austin Seibert made the extra point. - Second Quarter: K Austin Seibert connected on a 43-yard field goal with 0:03 left on the clock.
TEAM NOTES
The Lions… - Wore white pants in a game for the first time since at least 1950.
- Totaled 344 total net yards of offense, the most against the Packers since tallying 402 in Week 17 of 2018.
- Produced two players with over 60 receiving yards in back-to-back weeks.
- Converted on 2-of-2 trips to the red zone, making the Lions a perfect 5-for-5 in the red zone this season. Detroit ranks tied for first in red zone efficiency through two weeks.
INDIVIDUAL NOTES
QB JARED GOFF - Completed 26-of-36 passes for 246 yards, two touchdowns and a 97.7 passer rating.
- Also rushed four times for 46 yards, the most rushing yards in a single game in his career. His rushing mark is the most for a Lions quarterback since Jeff Driskel had 63 against Washington in 2019.
- His 26-yard rush in the fourth quarter was the longest in his career and tied for the fourth-longest for a Lions quarterback in franchise history.
- Became the first Lions QB to record over an 80% completion percentage., 125 yards and two passing touchdowns in the first half since QB Matthew Stafford in Week 15 of 2015 at New Orleans.
- Recorded an 81.5 completion percentage in the first half, the seventh-highest in the first half in franchise history and seventh highest in his career.
- His 81.5 completion percentage in the first half was the highest for any Lions quarterback against the Packers in history.
- Totaled 112 passing touchdowns, passing Russell Wilson (111) for 19th-most passing touchdowns through 71 career games.
TE T.J. HOCKENSON - Registered eight receptions for 66 yards and a touchdown.
- With his receiving touchdown, he tied Lions TE Charlie Sanders for third-most by a tight end in franchise history through three seasons.
- Surpassed 1,250 receiving yards and 10 touchdowns in his career, becoming the only Lions tight end to do so through 30- career games.
- Became the first Lions TE to record eight receptions in consecutive contests.
- Became the second Lions TE to record 50 receiving yards and a touchdown in consecutive games and first since TE David Hill did so in 1981.
- Recorded his third game with 60 receiving yards and a touchdown, tied for the fourth-most for a Lions tight end all-time.
- Joined Lions TE Brandon Pettigrew as the only two tight ends in franchise history to record multiple games with eight
receptions through 30-career games.
RB D’ANDRE SWIFT - Paired eight rushes for 37 yards with four receptions for 41 yards.
- Amassed 1,000 scrimmage yards and 10 TDs in his career, joining Lions RBs Billy Sims and Barry Sanders as the only Lions to do so through 15-career games.
- Surpassed 70 scrimmage yards for the ninth time in his career, the fourth-most through 15-career games for a Lions running back.
- Joined Lions RBs Billy Sims, Derrick Moore and Steve Owens as the only Lions to record three games with 30 rushing yards and 40 receiving yards through 15-career games.
- Tallied over 40 yards from scrimmage, becoming the eighth Lions RB to do so 12 times through 15-career games.
- Has now registered 40-plus yards from scrimmage in eight straight contests.
WR QUINTEZ CEPHUS - Finished with a career high in receptions (four) and tied a career high in receiving yards (63) alongside a touchdown and 15.8 receiving average.
- Caught a touchdown pass for a third-straight game.
DE NICK WILLIAMS - Recorded five tackles (four solo), 0.5 sack, two tackles for loss and two quarterback hits.
- Has now notched at least 0.5 sack in three-straight seasons.
- Registered two quarterback hits and 0.5 sack, doing so for the third time in his career and first since Week 9 of 2019.
OLB CHARLES HARRIS - Tallied three tackles (one solo), his first sack in Detroit for a 10-yard loss and his first sack since Week 11 of 2020.
DE MICHAEL BROCKERS - Compiled four tackles (three solo) and sack for a loss of 10 yards, his first in Detroit.
OLB TREY FLOWERS - Totaled five tackles (three solo) and a half sack for a 4-yard loss. It marked his first sack since Week 6 of 2020.
LB ALEX ANZALONE - Registered 10 tackles (eight solo), recording double digit tackles for the first time in his career.
LIONS HEAD COACH DAN CAMPBELL QUOTE SHEET
(on how the rain/weather impacted the game) “You do the wet ball drill, those things. I didn’t think we thought
it was going to get really bad. And it didn’t. I understand, the first one he (Jared Goff) fumbled, he just pulled
out quickly from under center. And then the one, yeah, it went out of his hand. That’s what you have towels
for and everything else, otherwise, you don’t wear towels. Crap happened and it’s on us. They (Green Bay)
didn’t have those errors. They didn’t have those fumbles. We did. That’s on us.”
(on the Lions struggling against the run) “For me, there’s little things that we have to clean up, but there’s also
things that I’m encouraged by. There’s some players that I’m encouraged by. Bobby Price encouraged me. Jerm
(Jermar Jefferson) encouraged me. The offensive line encouraged me. Swifty (D’Andre Swift) encouraged
me. There’s a number of guys. I see improvement in areas, but certainly not enough. When you play a team
like this, you can’t have the mistakes we had. We have to clean some of this stuff up. They got us a little bit,
however, they didn’t rush for over a hundred yards. I wouldn’t say the run crushed us. Do we want to be better?
Yeah, we do. Because ultimately, we need to get teams in third-and-medium or long. Most times you’re playing
your odds
– and your odds are much better at getting off the field. I do feel like we can maximize our packages and we
have some mismatch errors on third down. But we can’t even get to that.”
(on going for it on fourth down and why he made the play call he did) “We were hoping we would be able to
get a single with T.J. (Hockenson). And if not, it’s really, Q’s (Quintez Cephus) got to win. Or it’s T.J. And you’re
hoping it’s T.J. Well, it didn’t so you’ll be going out to your X and it didn’t work. There’s an argument for that.
Ultimately, one more time, you’re playing your odds. You’re hoping you’re going to get it to T.J. And it didn’t
workout. Well, you still have a one-on-one. And now your guy’s got to win. And it didn’t work out. It’s easy to
second guess it, certainly. But it didn’t work out.”
(on the lack of offensive production during the second half) “The turnovers. That was the big thing. It wasn’t
like we couldn’t run it. Every time offensively we struggle it’s because we’ve shot ourselves in the foot. The one
possession we didn’t score on in the first half was our own doing. We had a holding call, we had a false start,
we had an intentional grounding. And then you go into the second half and we had the fumbled snap, so that’s
a wasted snap. They fall on it. We had the interception, trying to make a play. Which I understand why he’s trying
to make a play, you’re down that much. It’s self-inflicted wounds. And then you reach a certain point where you’re
trying to continue to run your offense and be able to run it a little bit. Run the ball. But, yet, you’re also pressed,
pressed for time. We only have two timeouts. You’re down three scores. And you kind of get put in a bind. That’s
not the world we want to live in.”
(on QB Aaron Rodgers being able to convert on third-and-longs) “He made some plays. He’s going to make
some plays. For me, defensively, we’re going to improve, and we did improve in small areas. I put this on our
offense. Offensively, we have to be able to outscore a team like this. That’s just how I see it. Why? Because
it just turned into that type of game again. That’s why. And so to me, it’s on your offense. There’s going to be
games where, as we continue to improve, where the defense is going to have to step up and win a game for
us. I just feel like it was the flow where the game goes. Today it was another one of those games. We are not
allowed to make mistakes or have turnovers because we can’t rebound from those.”
(on how he as the coach prevents mistakes from continuing to be made) “I just tell them I don’t want to see
that shit. They come in, I’m not that type of person. I’m not a negative person. I’m all about going to work. I want
guys who are resilient, that are willing to go back to work. They love ball. They’re going to clean up their
mistakes. Those are the guys I’m looking for. I’m not a sulker. You’re not going to get me down. And those
are the types of people I want around me. I want guys who are looking for solutions. You know, we’re going
to fix our mess because we put ourselves in this mess. That’s what I’m looking for. I think we’re going to be just
fine. We’re going to be upbeat. And you know what? It should sting. I hope it does sting. It stings me. And that’s
OK. But that doesn’t mean you have to be negative or kick the dirt or anything else. And I don’t want those
types of guys around here.”
(on the poor performance of LBs Alex Anzalone and Jamie Collins Sr. and what the answer is) “Let me watch
the tape. Certainly, there’s some plays in there where we want those guys to come downhill. We need to see
them come downhill. Instead of playing laterally, play more downhill than laterally. I want to watch the tape,
and certainly, (Derrick) Barnes has been on our mind because he showed in preseason that he will run and hit.
We’re going to be looking at everything. We’re going to be looking at receivers. We’re going to be looking at our
backers. We’re going to be looking at everybody. Anybody we think can help us and needs to get a look at,
we’re going to give a look at.”
(on the need to be perfect on offense to have a chance in games) “If you can just stay in the flow of what you
do. There again, it’s the multiple penalties. It’s certainly the turnover. That just flips the tide for you. It does make
it more difficult, but it’s very possible. It’s very possible. You just don’t want to get in a world where, once again,
we had to throw it 40 times. That’s just not who we are. That’s not who we are. We don’t function best that
way. We have to stay ahead of it. We’re not allowed to make those mistakes. We just have to continue to home
in on it. And look, Jared’s (Goff) will be the first one to tell you that he has to take care of the ball better.”
(on if they have a strong enough offense to beat good teams) “I’d like to think so. Here’s what we got: I do like
our tight ends. We have a couple of backs. We just got a guy who came in from Denver – we traded for him –
and we’re still getting him up to speed. And let’s see where he’s at next week. Q (Quintez Cephus) made some
plays early. He didn’t make plays late. We’re just going to keep working. If we have to move somebody over
to X and move him to Z, or bump somebody else, we have to move (Tom) Kennedy to Z. We’re going to figure
it out. It’s hard for me to answer it that way, ‘No, we don’t have it.’ It’s hard for me to think that way. I believe
we have what we need here, we just have to home in on it. Maybe we have to find more plays for Swifty
(D’Andre Swift)? Maybe we need to find more plays for Hock (T.J. Hockenson)? You live a lot more in that
world. But I’m not giving up on our receivers either. We’ll just keep working and find out what they really, really
do best, that we can showcase. Or maybe even position-wise, exactly where they need to be. Are they better
in the slot? Are they better in the Z? Are they better at the X? When the lights come on, you figure out a lot.
That’s two games down. We have to clean it up.”
LIONS QUARTERBACK JARED GOFF QUOTE SHEET
(on the offense struggling in the second half) “Yeah, we just kept shooting yourselves in the foot there. We
had a good thing going in the first half and it was looking how we expected it to look, really. Yeah, just kept
shooting yourselves in the foot in the second half.”
(on if it was difficult to handle the ball with the rain coming down like it was) “It shouldn’t be, it shouldn’t be. It
gave us issues. It gave me issues specifically, but it shouldn’t be. We had the one snap and the ball slipped
out of my hand there at the end, but it shouldn’t be an issue.”
(on what he saw on the fourth-down play) “Yeah, I thought I had a good matchup with Q (Quintez Cephus).
Just didn’t hit it.”
(on if he was rushed or if there were communications issues on the fourth-and-1 play) “No. No, there was some
weird play clock stuff, but that was about it.”
(on Coach Campbell [during his postgame press conference] putting this on the offense and saying they need
to play better) “Sure, he’s right. Again, we were doing everything we wanted to in the first half. I think we scored
on every possession besides the one where we had the penalties. Kind of what we expected to do; run the
ball well, be able to get the ball down the field…and then in the second half we just kept stalling ourselves out.”
(on what the weird play clock stuff was) “Nothing that would have changed the game. A play or two where I
thought the play clock started a little early. Nothing that would have affected the outcome.”
(on if he is starting to feel comfortable with the offense and the receivers) “Yeah, I think…kind of mentioned it
last week, we’re getting better. I think it’s showing up in practice and today in the game in the first half. We are
getting better. We are getting more and more on the same page as time goes on. Dan (Campbell) says it all
the time that’s it’s a race to improve. How fast can we get to where we need to be because we’re clearly not
there yet.”
(on how he can keep the team upbeat and not slip into the mindset of the ‘same old Lions’) “Yeah, it’s a new
crew now. Obviously, there has been history with that. I believe in the guys we have here. I believe in Dan. I
believe in the staff…we believe this is a new regime and a new energy in the building. It’s still early. Obviously,
0-2 is not where we want to be, but a lot of room to improve and a lot of wins to be had down the line.”
(on Cephus continuing to make plays and specifically the deep ball to him) “Yeah, just scrambled out there a
little bit. He was able to turn up field and make a good catch up the field. I thought it was great. He almost pulled
down that one at the end of the half there. I think he’s done a great job. He’s continuing to improve. A guy that
we’re starting to trust more and more. Hopefully can continue to build that rapport with him.”
(on having to keep up with three great offenses to start the season in the 49ers, Packers, Ravens) “I’m not
playing their offense. We’re playing their defense. We’ve got to better against each defense we play. Our defense
will handle them on their offense, but we’ve got to focus on what we can do better, and there’s a handful of things
we can do.”
(on why this offense can win shootouts this season) “Yeah, I think we’ve got guys with ability on the outside
and we can pass block and run block with anyone in the league. And I like to think I can make throws with
anyone in the league. It’s all there for us. And we’ve shown flashes of it, like I said last week. It just needs to
happen more often and that’s with everybody, myself included. We’re there. We have the players. We have the
plays. We just need to be on the same page a little bit more and just continue to get better and continue to stay
consistent.
