The Green Bay Packers' win streak ended at three as a frustrating loss in Detroit dropped Matt LaFleur's team to 4-3 and served as a reality check that there is still a lot of work to do to make this team playoff worthy.
Here are five takeaways from Sunday's 20-17 loss at Ford Field.
Drops cost the Packers
It is easy and understandable to put the blame for this loss at the feet of the referees, who had another unfathomably bad performance.
But the truth is the various head-scratching penalties were mostly overcome by the Packers defense, and regardless of what came before, the offense was given the chance to take a late lead after the Lions turned the ball over on downs just outside their own 20.
A drop from Josh Jacobs cost Green Bay a touchdown, and it was not the first time on Sunday, or in this season, that a failure to simply catch the ball took away points, an explosive play or a game-changing play.
Too many mistakes are still being made and it is capping the ceiling of an exceptionally explosive offense. The Packers should have scored far more than 17 points on Sunday, and they lost because of a lack of execution.
Jacobs provides a spark
He will be kicking himself for the crucial drop, but Jacobs did at least bring a burst of energy to the Packers offense.
He managed to turn some runs that recently were going for losses of yards or marginal gains into positive plays, and created a touchdown out of nothing on his 25-yard, tackle-breaking score.
Green Bay getting Jacobs back is a necessary step to finding some kind of rhythm on offense. Now they must wait to see if any additional suspension could come.
Run game is still not good enough
Despite Jacobs’ best efforts, the Packers still toiled on the ground against one of the worst defenses in the league. There are still far too many plays where there is just nothing blocked and the play is dead on arrival.
Green Bay went with the same starting offensive line once again, and were reduced to playing third-string center John Williams less than 10 plays into the game.
Matt LaFleur said he did not expect either of the injured Sean Rhyan or Jacob Monk to be healthy for Thursday night’s game against Carolina, so Williams may get the start, but between the now seemingly healthy-ish Aaron Banks and Kevin Zeitler, it is time to end the Travis Glover experiment at right guard.
Gannon makes it work again
Jonathan Gannon’s defense received two massively lucky breaks in this game as the Lions fumbled twice, once when center Cade Mays punched the ball out of Jahmyr Gibbs’ hands near the goal line, and once on a failed exchange with Jared Goff.
However, they deserve immense credit for holding Detroit to 20 points, especially after they were gashed early in the game. Gibbs was held in check for much of the contest and their two stops from 3rd and 1 to give the offense the ball back with a chance to take the lead was heroic.
Even without various important pieces, the Packers defense keeps proving itself to be good enough to win with, and that is before Micah Parsons returns.
A bad day for special teams
Trey Smack will get the negative headlines after seemingly missing two kicks from 35 yards or closer in a three-point loss, but it would not be fair to pin a poor day of special teams solely on him.
Of course, there is no excuse for missing a 26-yarder, but he made the initial 21-yarder before a penalty forced the re-kick, and his other miss from 35 was tipped.
Cam Achord’s unit also allowed several sizable kickoff returns, and generally did not hold up its end of the bargain on Sunday. Regardless of how the blame should be apportioned, all eyes will be on Smack to see if he can bounce back again, as he had to do just a couple of weeks ago.
This article originally appeared on Packers Wire: 5 takeaways from Packers' 20-17 loss to Lions: Drops prove costly