Sloppy. That’s the one word to perfectly describe the game between the Green Bay Packers and the Detroit Lions on Sunday. And I’m not talking about the weather. I’m talking about the product the Packers put on the field in their 24-14 loss. Purely and utterly sloppy.

The game started just fine. Green Bay received the opening kickoff and marched down the field on a 14-play, 63-yard drive that ended with a field goal. However, the offense stalled throughout the game due to drops, penalties, and botched snaps.

Green Bay’s drops were the foremost issue. The Packers entered Sunday’s game ranking third in the league in most dropped passes. They dropped six more against the Lions, two of which would have been touchdowns.

The weather was a factor. The rain fell hard, and wind gusts reached the 40 mph range during the second half. However, Detroit had a fantastic day catching the football. They didn’t drop any and have only four drops on the entire year. Detroit’s receivers made tough catches and seemed unphased by the weather despite playing their first outdoor game of the season.

Green Bay’s receivers are young. Still, they are experienced enough to make high-point catches in the rain. On Sunday, the receivers tried catching with their pads and would start to look upfield before securing the ball, resulting in drops.

The dropped passes were not even the worst part of the performance. That would be the discipline or lack thereof.

Green Bay had 10 penalties for 67 yards. One of those was an intentional delay of the game to give the punter more room. So call it nine penalties for 62 yards. That’s still too much to give up against a top-tier opponent like the Lions.

Of those nine penalties, five were pre-snap, four false start calls, and one brutal neutral-zone infraction penalty.

That infraction penalty came on Detroit’s first offensive possession of the game. They drove down the field, and the Packers stopped them for a fourth-and-goal situation at Green Bay’s five-yard line. Initially, they lined up looking like they would run a play. However, they likely were just trying to get a hard count in before kicking the short field goal.

Instead, Tedarrell Slaton bull-rushed the center, knocking him down and moving the ball half the distance to make it a much easier fourth-and-goal from near the two-yard line.

Goff threw it short on the next play to the outside, where Amon-Ra St. Brown caught it for a touchdown. That was a huge missed opportunity for Green Bay, and it set the tone for the rest of the game.

AMON-RA ST. BROWN WITH THE TOUCHDOWN ON 4TH AND GOAL 🔥

Make that six straight games with a touchdown for Sun Godpic.twitter.com/mLmrIgwT2z

— St. Brown Podcast (@StBrownPodcast) November 3, 2024

The frustrating part about that sequence is that the cameras caught Matt LaFleur complaining to the ref after the flag on Slaton. We don’t know what he was complaining about. Still, LaFleur could have better channeled that energy by getting into Slaton’s ear, chewing him out for making a dumb play in a crucial situation. How, as an athlete, will he learn to be more disciplined if the coach doesn’t instruct him after a bad play?

The same principle applies to the offense and the false starts. Every player in the huddle knows the snap count. To see one false start is frustrating enough, let alone four of them in the same game. These penalties can ruin good drives because you take three steps forward but then one or two backward. You cannot commit these unforced errors against a team like the Lions, who will consistently take advantage of favorable situations.

The last frustrating part of the game was Jordan Love’s inability to corral some of the shotgun snaps. There were three botched snaps between Love and center Elgton Jenkins in the second half alone. Jenkins is usually a guard but had to switch to center due to Josh Myers’ injury.

Between the weather and the inexperienced center, it makes sense that some snaps may be a bit off-target. But even if they are, Love must be aware of this and anticipate some wild snaps. He did not. None of these miscues resulted in turnovers, but they did kill drives.

LaFleur will most likely bring attention to these during practice this week. Still, it would have been much more motivating to see him get in these guys’ faces and challenge them to perform better during the game instead of complaining to the refs or worrying about the next play call. He’s aware of the excessive number of mistakes, though.

#Packers HC Matt LaFleur on the loss to Detroit👇

“Just way too many mistakes.” pic.twitter.com/TdHV8pWdjF

— 97.3 The Game (@TheGameMKE) November 4, 2024

The Lions are a great football team, and these mistakes alone are not the reason why Green Bay lost. Still, the Packers made a hard game more challenging because of them.