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The Detroit Lions lost to the Baltimore Ravens by a score of 18-16 on Monday. Here are my three main takeaways from the game:
Matthew Stafford is regressing
Matthew Stafford finished Monday's game with 18 completions on 34 attempts, 235 yards, 1 touchdown and 3 interceptions. Put all that together and you get a quarterback rating of 48.0. That's just not good enough, and Stafford is probably the biggest reason why the Lions lost on Monday. I don't know what's wrong with him, but he has seemingly gotten worse as the season has progressed. He's certainly not living up to the contract extension he received last summer, and it's clear that the Lions aren't going to win many games with him playing this poorly.
Calvin Johnson has to stop dropping passes
Calvin Johnson is the most talented wide receiver in football, and it's clear that he's far from 100 percent healthy. But that's no excuse; the drops have got to stop. This is a team-wide problem, but Johnson especially has to stop letting potentially big plays go to waste because he's dropping routine passes. He's better than that, but he had a couple bad drops on Monday night, including one early in the game on a third-and-15. If Megatron makes that catch, the Lions likely at least get a field goal out of that drive, and who knows how things would have been different had they not simply punted the ball away.
The defense did enough for the Lions to win this game
Yes, mistakes were made by the defense on Monday, including on that final drive before Baltimore kicked its game-winning field goal. However, the Lions defense didn't allow a single Ravens touchdown. Holding a team to only field goals should be more than enough for a victory in the NFL. It's true that Justin Tucker played out of his mind with his 6 field goals and the 61-yarder to win the game, but the Lions should have been able to score more than 16 points and not let a pretty solid performance by the defense go to waste.
