Monday open thread: Do you feel better, worse or the same about the Lions?

The Detroit Lions fell to 1-2 on Sunday after another mystifying performance. The Green Bay Packers absolutely throttled the Lions in the first half of the game. But somehow, Detroit fought their way back into it and nearly had a chance to tie it up the game at the end.

At this point, there’s a lot more clarity to this team than there was a few weeks ago. Their offense is formidable and capable of keeping the entire team in the game. Their defense is a dumpster fire inside of a dumpster fire.

Like every Monday, today’s Question of the Day is:

Do you feel better, worse or the same about the Lions after Sunday’s game?

My answer: A little worse. Even though I predicted the Packers to score exactly 34 points in my preview, I still expected to see a little more fight in this defense. But I’ve gotten to a point where I don’t think we’re going to see improvement from this unit for a while. Teryl Austin was able to right the defensive ship last year, but not before the season was pretty much lost. Right now, the defense looks just as bad as it did at the beginning of last year, and with most of the key defensive injuries looking to be long term, this appears to be an issue that will stick around through October.

The gleam of hope rests on Matthew Stafford and the offense, who continue to drive downfield while limiting their mistakes. Stafford is completing 67.5 percent of his passes, averaging well over 300 yards a game, and has seven touchdowns to just two interceptions. Marvin Jones is growing into a legitimate No. 1 receiver. While Eric Ebron and Dwayne Washington are budding into potentially big role players.

But the team will still only go as far as the defense can take them. A lot of their future games will be shootouts, and if the Lions need one more defensive stop to get the ball back, they just can’t rely on their defense to do it right now.

Your turn.