Inglewood, Calif. — The Detroit Lions were ready for war as they entered SoFi Stadium on Sunday.
But after taking a 10-point lead into halftime, the passing attack from former quarterback Matthew Stafford ultimately became too much. The Lions allowed 20 straight points and fell completely out of rhythm offensively in the second half, melting in the California sun as the NFC’s No. 1 seed, the Los Angeles Rams, rolled to a 41-34 victory.
Factoring in other results from around the league, including Green Bay’s loss to Denver, the Lions’ playoff odds fell to 27%, per the New York Times’ playoff predictor. Detroit (8-6) will now likely have to win all three of its remaining games to reach the playoffs.
“It’s frustrating. … We’re better than that, I know we’re better than that,” Lions coach Dan Campbell said after the game. “Look, I knew we were gonna need to score some points. That’s a good team, it’s a good offense, a good quarterback, it’s all of it. … But we’re better than 41 points.”
Given the way the season has gone, Lions quarterback Jared Goff was asked after the game what the identity of this team has become.
“We’re resilient. I hope I can give you a really good answer in three weeks, but we’re resilient, we really are, and I expect us to bounce back from this. We still have plenty of stuff in front of us. We do,” Goff said.
“We’ve got a great group that can win a championship here, and we know that, we just have to stick together and not allow some of the narratives to pull anything apart. Our captains need to step up, our leaders need to step up, and be vocal and have energy, not anything that I don’t expect us to do.”
After a stellar first half, the Lions completely gave the game away in the third quarter, allowing 20 unanswered points. They entered halftime with a 24-14 lead, then went three-and-out on three straight possessions while Stafford and Co. could do no wrong. Stafford, the ex-Lions gunslinger, tallied 368 passing yards while completing 24 of 38 attempts for two touchdowns.
Detroit had no answer for wide receivers Puka Nacua, who caught nine passes for 181 yards, and Davante Adams, who had five catches for 75 yards before leaving the game with a hamstring injury. The Lions were playing without their top three safeties — Kerby Joseph, Brian Branch and Thomas Harper — and starting cornerback Terrion Arnold.
Since shutting down the Tampa Bay Buccaneers in a 27-9 victory in Week 7, the Lions’ defense has allowed 27.7 points per game, sixth-most in the league during that span.
“Honestly, it’s, again, self-inflicted stuff, and I feel like — I don’t know, I’m just kind of — it’s pretty frustrating,” Lions linebacker Jack Campbell said.
The Lions, meanwhile, collected just 125 yards in the second half. Their first four possessions of the second half, which included a field-goal drive, yielded just 42 total yards. The Lions’ early-down efficiency hurt them badly. The first three-and-out was derailed by a holding penalty on second-and-5, but on the next two first downs, they gained a total of 1 yard.
“That’s just tough. That defense is good, and if you allow yourself to be behind the sticks like that, they do a good job,” Goff said.
Detroit hasn’t had back-to-back victories — or losses, for that matter — since Weeks 4 and 5.
“My message (to the team was), don’t go numb when you get these losses, the win-lose, win-lose,” Dan Campbell said. “Like, we’ve gotta get out of that rut, and it can’t be OK. … Like, it should burn at you. It should eat you up. Do not go numb to the losing.”
As Stafford provided the dagger with his second passing touchdown of the game to Colby Parkinson, taking a 41-27 lead with 4:49 remaining, chants of “MVP!” rained down from the Rams’ faithful. Stafford connected with Parkinson twice, including a controversial 26-yard touchdown during the third quarter in which it looked like the ball might’ve been moving when it made contact with the turf, but was deemed a touchdown after review. Parkinson also appeared to be down at the 1-yard line, but officials let the touchdown stand, anyway.
Lions defensive end Aidan Hutchinson said Stafford “was playing his ass off today.”
“Everything just happened really quickly,” Hutchinson said of the second-half onslaught. “I feel like it was not really going our way and couldn’t find a way to stop the bleeding. … That third quarter was a little rough for us.”
The Lions had a chance to get back in the game with a 1-yard rushing touchdown by David Montgomery with 2:42 remaining — their first touchdown of the half — which brought the score to 41-34.
But they then decided to kick the ball away and try to get a stop with their defense. The Rams, who averaged 5.5 yards per carry, picked up one first down and punted the ball away, giving Detroit the ball with just 13 seconds left. The Lions ran one play before the clock ran out.
“Yeah, I don’t know. I don’t have an answer for you right now,” Dan Campbell said when asked why he didn’t attempt an onside kick. Teams recovered onside kicks at a rate of just 6.5% last season.
Following a 31-yard touchdown by Jameson Williams with 30 seconds left in the first half, the Rams (11-3) outscored Detroit 27-10 the rest of the way.
Goff finished 25-for-41 passing for 338 yards and three touchdowns. Wide receiver Amon-Ra St. Brown had 13 catches for 163 yards and two touchdowns, and wide receiver Jameson Williams had seven for 126 and a touchdown. The Lions’ next leading receiver, running back Jahmyr Gibbs, had four catches for 20 yards and was completely ineffective on the ground, rushing for just 38 yards on 13 carries.
“It was tough, man. We’ve got to be better as an offense. We’ve got to execute, we’ve got to make more plays, especially going against a team like that. We didn’t make enough plays,” St. Brown said.
“First half, we made big plays, plays when we needed them. Like I said, you play a team like that, you’ve just got to make more plays. You think you’ve made enough until they start making even more. You’ve just got to be better. I’ve gotta be better.”
The Lions were cruising on their opening drive but had the possession derailed in part because of a holding penalty on Penei Sewell, which nullified a 15-yard run by Gibbs that moved Detroit out of the red zone. The Lions wound up settling for a 43-yard field goal and missed, wide left, on fourth-and-4.
But Detroit answered with a momentum-swinging play of its own on the other end. After the Rams moved to the edge of Detroit’s red zone, Lions edge defender Aidan Hutchinson intercepted a screen pass to tight end Colby Parkinson and returned it to the 17-yard line of L.A., where Goff hit St. Brown for a 17-yard touchdown to put the Lions up, 7-0, with 8:07 left in the first quarter.
“It was a fun play,” Hutchinson said.
The Rams tied the score, 7-7, on a first-quarter drive in which they converted two fourth-down passes to Nacua. After moving near the goal line, running back Kyren Williams punched it in from 4 yards out with 2:44 remaining in the opening quarter.
Detroit regained a lead with 12:04 left in the second quarter. David Montgomery helped the Lions get inside the 10-yard line, but the Rams’ second-ranked red-zone defense proved to be a tough foe, and Detroit settled for a 24-yard field goal from Jake Bates to go up 10-7.
Neither team’s offense had any interest in slowing down. The Rams took a 14-10 lead after Kyren Williams ran for 19 yards and Nacua caught a 36-yard pass on consecutive plays. After several failed attempts near the goal line, Kyren Williams finished the drive with a 1-yard rushing touchdown.
But the Lions answered, going 65 yards in four plays to go back on top, 17-14. St. Brown caught a 52-yard pass on the opening play, then finished the drive on third-and-5 with an 8-yard receiving touchdown on a screen pass, his second of the game.
After Detroit’s defense got a stop, Dan Campbell made a gutsy fourth-down decision to extend the lead before half. The Lions went for it on fourth-and-1 from their own 29 as Goff completed a 14-yard pass to St. Brown to keep the drive alive. The Lions then took a 24-14 lead with 30 seconds left on a 31-yard touchdown pass to Jameson Williams.
“I felt really good about it,” Dan Campbell said of the decision. “I knew we’d get it. I felt very confident about it, and I knew players would execute. … It worked out, you know, and if it doesn’t, I’m in trouble, right? So, that’s the story of every week.”
St. Brown, a Southern California native, had nine catches for 127 yards at the half.
The Rams did, however, move into field-goal range before half as Nacua again burned Lions cornerback D.J. Reed in coverage for a 37-yard gain, opening the door for a 37-yard field goal by Harrison Mevis to make it 24-17, Detroit, as time expired.
Detroit got a stop on the first possession after halftime, allowing it to preserve the lead. Defensive tackle Roy Lopez forced a loss of 8 with a second-down sack, and the third-down snap to Stafford missed the target, resulting in a throwaway. Mevis added a 44-yard field goal to make it 24-20 with 9:07 left in the third quarter.
But the Lions had another drive derailed by a holding penalty and ended up giving the ball right back. The Rams put together a nine-play, 88-yard drive that featured two third-down pickups and culminated with Parkinson catching a 26-yard pass to go up, 27-24, with 2:26 left in the third quarter.
The Lions went three-and-out on their ensuing possession, and if you blinked, you missed another Rams touchdown. L.A. scored in two plays, including an 11-yard rushing touchdown by Blake Corum, to go up 34-24 late in the third quarter.
Detroit finally broke the scoring drought on a 48-yard field goal from Bates with 7:54 left.
The Lions will host the Pittsburgh Steelers (7-6), who play Monday night, at Ford Field next week.
“We gotta get better. We gotta get better. We gotta move on. Can’t sulk about it, can’t feel sorry for ourselves,” Dan Campbell said.
nbianchi@detroitnews.com
@nolanbianchi
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