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The Detroit Lions struggled all over the field against the Minnesota Vikings, particularly on the defensive side of the ball and the grades for the performance this week reflect that.
As part of the frustrating 42-30 loss, there were multiple bad performances on the field and the team simply didn’t get it done in the end enough in order to win a very key game.
Here’s a look at how the Lions should be graded as a result of the embarrassing and frustrating defeat in Week 7.
Offense
A-
If there’s one thing to criticize the Lions for on this side of the ball, it’s not having adequate responses for every Minnesota touchdown drive. Reality says that is very impossible and tough to expect that side of the ball to be perfect all the time, so the loss was more on the defense than anything else in this game. The Lions offense went for over 400 yards and scored 30 points. With a serviceable offense, that should be more than enough to win. If there was anything for fans to be frustrated about, a lack of a running game was a glaring problem, but Kerryon Johnson was one of a few notable absences early in the game. Otherwise the wideouts and Matthew Stafford played well.
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Defense
F
The Lions defense let the team down in a big way by never being able to stop Minnesota. Giving up over 500 of yards in offense is a bad look for the team. They didn’t get a big stop most of the afternoon, put no pressure on the pocket and didn’t make a game changing play in terms of an interception or fumble recovery. The Lions defense was simply bad from start to finish and has to find a way to get better in a hurry. This wasn’t the effort that would win them a game against most of the opposition they face on the schedule, never mind if it was a division rival or not. A total failure from this group, and one that deserves to be graded as such.
Special Teams
B+
A decent performance for this group with Matt Prater once again nailing plenty of kicks and the group playing decently well. Special teams was not the reason that the Lions lost the game whatsoever. In other weeks, they have been the reason they have hung in. While that wasn’t exactly the case either, the Lions did a decent job to get some performance from this group on the day.
Coaching
D+
The Lions had to deal with a short week and they did so in poor fashion, not making nearly enough big plays on defense. That’s on Matt Patricia, Paul Pasqualoni and the staff. They had to get their team ready better for this game, and they looked sloppy and ill-prepared in a key contest. Offensively, the Lions performed decently enough to save the staff from total failure. Still, it wasn’t a great look for the team to have this type of failure performance back to back against the NFC North. The staff takes a hit as a result.
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