DETROIT LIONS WEEK 2 POST-GAME NOTES & QUOTES

The following are post-game notes and quotes from the Detroit Lions’ 42-21 loss to the Green Bay Packers at
Lambeau Field on Sunday, Sept. 20, 2020.
POST-GAME NOTES
LIONS SCORING PLAYS

  • First Quarter: RB Kerryon Johnson capped an eight-play, 75-yard opening drive with a one-yard touchdown rush.
    K Matt Prater converted the extra point to give the Lions a 7-0 lead with 10:33 left in the quarter.
  • First Quarter: QB Matthew Stafford threw a four-yard touchdown pass to WR Marvin Jones Jr. with four seconds left in the quarter. K Matt Prater converted the extra point to give Detroit a 14-3 lead.
  • Fourth Quarter: QB Matthew Stafford threw a 24-yard touchdown pass to WR Marvin Hall. K Matt Prater made the extra point to make the score 34-21 with 13:00 left in the game.
    TEAM NOTES
    The Lions…
  • Opened the game with an eight-play, 75-yard touchdown drive, not facing a third down the entire drive.
  • Produced their first opening drive touchdown against the Packers since doing so at Green Bay on Nov. 6, 2017.
  • Produced touchdowns on their first two drives of the game. This is only the second time they’ve done this against
    the Packers since 1999, and first occurrence since doing so on Dec. 9, 2012.
    INDIVIDUAL NOTES
    LB JAMIE COLLINS SR.
  • Finished with five tackles (four solo), 1.0 sack and two tackles for loss.
  • Reached 25.5 sacks in his career, becoming the seventh player in NFL history to produce at least 25.0 sacks and 10
    interceptions within his first 100 career games.
    P JACK FOX
  • Finished with five punts for 271 yards (54.2 avg., 53.0 net), booming a long of 67 yards and pinning two punts inside
    the 20-yardline.
  • His 54.2 gross average is the most a Lions rookie has had in a single game in franchise history when attempting at
    least five punts and ranks as the 13th-highest in franchise history.
    TE T.J. HOCKENSON
  • Notched four receptions for 62 yards (15.5), with a long reception of 29 yards.
  • Became the first tight end in franchise history to produce at least 50 receiving yards in the first two games of a
    season.
    RB KERRYON JOHNSON
  • Rushed eight times for 32 yards (4.0 avg.) and one touchdown.
  • Became the fourth player in team history to total at least seven rushing touchdowns and two receiving touchdowns
    through the first 20 games of their careers, joining RBs Billy Sims (1980-81), Steve Owens (1970-71) and Tom
    Nowatzke (1965-67).
    WR MARVIN JONES JR.
  • Caught four passes for 23 yards (5.8 avg.) and one touchdown.
  • Extended his streak to 83-straight games with at least one reception, the eighth-longest active streak in the NFL.
  • Logged his 15th receiving touchdown against the NFC North since joining the Lions in 2016, the second-most a
    player has had against his own division in that span.
    K MATT PRATER
  • With three points scored, passed K Fred Cox (1,365) for the 34th-most points scored in NFL history.
    QB MATTHEW STAFFORD
  • Finished 20-of-33 (60.6%) for 244 yards, two touchdowns, one interception and a 91.0 rating.
  • Reached 36 career passing touchdowns against Green Bay, passing Hall of Fame QB Johnny Unitas (34) for the
    most touchdown passes thrown against the Packers in NFL history.
  • Notched his 81st-career game with at least two touchdown passes.
    RB D’ANDRE SWIFT
  • Finished with five carries for 12 yards (2.4 avg.) and added five receptions for 60 yards (12.0 avg.).
  • Became the sixth rookie running back in franchise history to finish a game with at least five receptions and 60
    receiving yards.
    HEAD COACH MATT PATRICIA:
    (opening statement) “Obviously, a very disappointing game on our end. Give the Packers credit, they did a great job capitalizing on the situations out there, and you know, take advantage of the game and we certainly did not. We’ve got a lot of work to do. Got to go back to work and got to push forward. But obviously, not a very good game on our end.”
    (on the play of the Lions’ rushing defense) “Yeah, I mean, obviously we’ve got a lot of work to do. And we’ve got to be consistent in what we’re doing and we’ve got to get it coached up better and understand the techniques and improve all the way around. It’s early in the year, but it’s still got to be good. We’ve got to do a better job with what we’re doing right now, especially to come out and start the second half. You know, those plays can happen when you’ve got a dangerous back like that, but we need to do a better job being ready to go.”
    (on his confidence in the defensive scheme right now) “I mean, obviously, you play a game like this today, it’s a bad game. It’s not good enough and we’re trying to do better. I think our scheme has been really multiple. We’ve tried to just do whatever the best we could to fit the guys that we have to play at a high level and certainly there’s a lot of teaching and technique and fundamental work that is involved with that. In the end, we’ve just obviously…it’s just got to improve.”
    (on if he has the personnel to execute what he wants to do right now) “Yeah, I’ve got all the confidence in the world in these guys. We’ve just got to go out and do it. We’ve got to stop doing things that hurt our team and hurt us and just make sure we’re trying to execute at a high level and coach and play well.”
    (on what went wrong on Jones’ 75-yard run) “We had, I would say a couple bad fundamentals. Little bit of space in there, maybe a missed angle toward the play that was not good enough from that standpoint.”
    (on Stafford making some uncharacteristic mistakes) “You know, obviously it’s a team game. I think everybody on the field has got to play better. And certainly he’s the guy that’s got the ball and may look, you know, in his world of what’s going on, but there’s other things that are happening that influence the plays too. We’ve just got to execute better all the way across the board.”
    (on his evaluation on Jeff Okudah’s first start) “I mean, obviously we’ll go back and look at it. I don’t think anybody on the field did well enough. I think all of us, coaches and players, have got to do better.”
    (on the Lions starting well but not being able to finish games) “Obviously, we’re doing a good job starting fast. I think that’s
    something that’s happening for our team and that’s a good thing. I think we’ve got to use that momentum and keep it going, certainly in a year that’s a little bit unusual. But that energy, that focus, all of it, it’s just got to come through for 60 minutes. We can’t ride the wave of the game. You know, we can’t go up and down and be really high and then something
    happens and go really low and then try to pick it back up. Then something good happens and go really high again. Just the ebbs and flows of the game, we’ve got to ignore that. We’ve got to stay consistent. We’ve got to not think about the end result before we get to the end result. We’ve got to think about that play at that moment and stay in that moment and you know that’s something we have to do.”
    (on losing 11-straight games, including 2019, and how he as the coach can turn it around) “I mean, obviously, for us right now it’s the 2020 season. We’ve got two losses in a row. That’s where we’re at. For us, it’s a different team. We know we have a long way to go, we’ve got to improve. We’ve got to get better. That’s really the bottom line. I think the things that the guys are working on are trying, and coaching-wise, we’re trying to get better. You know, we understand that change happens every year and we had a lot of change over last year. It’s our first time kind-of going with everybody that we have from coaching and playing. So, we’re going to keep pushing. We’re going to keep getting our work and try to improve. But, at this point, it’s early and we’ve got to kind-of just do everything we can to get it better.
    (on why the team is having problems with getting unnecessary roughness fouls and personal foul penalties over the last
    two weeks)
    “Obviously, the penalties all the way across the board, all of them are no good. You get a penalty on third down, that’s not good either. All of them are things we know we have to prevent. If you want to win you’ve got to eliminate the penalties. I mean, it’s pretty simple. Those are things we need to be more disciplined with and we’ve got to understand
    that, the way that we play still has to be within the rules and we can’t do anything that’s outside of that. We need to understand the officials and what they’re looking at and the things that they’re calling, and we just have to be smarter with it.”
    (on the holding calls on the defensive backs and having two corners out of the game) “Obviously, we had a lot of confidence in the guys that were out there, but just like you said, you can’t have those penalties, especially on third down. You can’t grab. You can’t pull. You know, we’ve got good players, they’re going to be able to get in some positions and
    we’ve got to be able to just stay with our fundamentals and not try to do something outside of that that’s going to hurt us like a penalty.
    (on the importance of pass rush and why the Lions are struggling to put pressure on the quarterback this season) “Aaron
    Rodgers is a really difficult quarterback to pass rush against and certainly we’ve got to do a better job of creating pressure and making sure we’re working towards the quarterback. I think he did a good job of getting rid of the ball. I think there was a couple of situations where we had some chances that we didn’t finish. And then, a couple of situations where we got out of our lanes and we let him get out and scramble and extend the play and that’s not really good either. Those guys, they’re trying to be in position and be disciplined with it, but he can really hurt you when you’re not.”
    (on the reason to bench defensive end Julian Okwara) “Obviously, we’re trying to put everybody out on the field there that we needed based on some of the injuries that we had and the positions that we needed for special teams, offense and defense, and sometimes that’s just how the numbers work.”
    (on why the team continues to struggle with composure and discipline and if it has to do with coaching) “Obviously, we’ve
    just got to do a better job in those situations and put it on all of us, put it on me first, and we got to coach it and execute it better when we have those situations. We understand we can’t have penalties. We have to keep our composure. We can’t have turnovers. We’ve got to do everything we can to make sure we don’t give up big plays. So, it’s just got to be all of us doing a better job.”
    QUARTERBACK MATTHEW STAFFORD:
    (on his health after the game) “I feel good. I’ll be fine.”
    (on his confidence level in his head coach) “I’m confident. We got to go out and play better. That is the biggest thing. We got to play better really in all three phases. You look at it, we weren’t good enough on offense, defense or special teams. The Packers played good. We didn’t. There were times in the game where we were executing well and times where we
    didn’t. We just got to make sure we execute better more consistently.”
    (on why Detroit starts games fast, but then struggles) “The guys on the other side of the ball, the other team, they are NFL football players too. They are going to capitalize on mistakes. We made too many mistakes today and they did a nice job of capitalizing on them. Obviously you got to go back and look at the tape on all of it, but it kind of boils down to that. You can’t make as many mistakes as we did and expect to beat a good football team.”
    (on what the team is doing early in games that it isn’t replicating in the final three quarters) “Just executing. I think our guys did a nice job today on the first couple drives of the game. Had a couple penalties that derailed us late in the first half, and then second half, just didn’t start it good enough. They started well and we didn’t, and you look up and it’s a two score game and that’s not how you want to play these guys with the pass rush that they have and the players they have on the back end. So we just got to do a better job of staying close and making the game more friendly for us. Obviously, down 21 points late in the fourth quarter, that’s not a place you want to be.”
    (on his interception that resulted in a Green Bay defensive touchdown) “They brought their free safety off the slot, so it was technically a hot (read) for me. I have to feel 39 (Packers CB Chandon Sullivan) out there and dirt it or try to slide around and find Marv [Marvin Jones Jr]. Obviously it was a huge play in the game that I can’t make. I have to find a way to make sure that we’re not giving up points there. If I have to an incompletion that looks horrible or find a way to get around and get the ball out, I’ve got to do that. Listen, there’s plays in this game I want back, there’s no question about that.”
    (on the mood of the team right now) “I think everybody is disappointed. Every time you lose it is disappointing, we put a ton of work into it. We are working our tails off and it’s not showing up on Sundays. That’s not fun, that’s not fun for us. We’ve got to do a better job of coming out on Sundays and playing better. Had good weeks of preparation and then for one reason or another, haven’t been able to get a win. We have to make sure we do that. Obviously a new challenge in
    front of us this week. I know all the guys in our locker room, we’ve got a bunch of great guys and veteran players who know how to lead, and we’ll come out this week at practice and be grinding and doing everything we can to prepare to try and win a game.”
    (on not having Kenny Golladay) “Obviously he is a really good player. We have injuries in a lot of different spots all around our team, but that is the NFL. Sometimes that happens. We’ve got guys battling through and playing with stuff, and we’re proud of those guys, but we got to try and get healthy, get some of our guys back, and go out there and be successful.”
    (on Kerryon Johnson’s rushing day) “I thought he did a nice job. Kerryon did a really good job. Obviously in the second half we were in a spot there where we weren’t able to run the ball as much as we would have liked. I think early in the game our guys up front did a great job controlling the line of scrimmage and we ran the ball really successfully. They kept me clean the majority of the game until we’re down 21 late in the game, and that’s every defensive lineman’s, that’s what they wish for at the beginning of the game. I thought our offensive line played well and our backs did a nice job when the ball was in their hands.”
    (on his level of frustration with losses throughout the years) “I have been playing here for a long time and I want to win. I think everybody in our locker room wants to win. I know they do. Our whole organization does. I am just going to continue to try and put as much work as I possibly can into it, be as prepared as I can going into games and try to play at a high level. It is frustrating anytime you don’t win. Nobody is more upset than I am about that. I’m just going to try to do everything I know how to do to play better and score a bunch of points and win games.”