Lions must rebound after emotional loss

Sep 26, 2017 - 4:32 AM ALLEN PARK, Mich. -- They suffered one of the cruelest losses in recent memory, on a clock runoff after officials made a controversial call on the field, and now the Detroit Lions must regroup in time for a tough division game against the Minnesota Vikings.

"That's part of the challenge that we face every week after either you win or you lose," Lions head coach Jim Caldwell said. "If you win and guys are still thinking about how well they played the day before or week before, that can get you. And this is no different. This is kind of (what) this league is all about."

The Lions haven't been very successful in bounce-back games recently.

In 2015, they lost handily to the Arizona Cardinals a week after officials missed a batted-ball call in the end zone that preserved a Seattle Seahawks victory, and later in the season they fell to an inferior St. Louis Rams team 10 days after Aaron Rodgers completed a miraculous Hail Mary touchdown pass.

Last year, the Lions no-showed their playoff loss to the Seattle Seahawks after losing at home to the Packers in Week 17 with the division title on the line.

Caldwell said this year's team is different, and the roster has had plenty of turnover. But Sunday's loss to the Atlanta Falcons still was of the gut-punch variety.

"It's crazy," defensive tackle Akeem Spence said. "It's just, it sucked the life out of me."

The Lions intercepted three Matt Ryan passes to rally from a 14-point second-quarter deficit, and briefly appeared to take the lead on a touchdown pass from Matthew Stafford to Golden Tate with 8 seconds to play.

Replays, however, showed Tate was touched down inches short of the goal line, and when the score was overturned on review, it necessitated a 10-second runoff because the Lions were out of timeouts.

In an instant, the Lions went from upsetting the defending NFC champions in dramatic fashion to picking their hearts up off the ground.

Caldwell said he doesn't think there'll be much work to do this week to put those hearts back together, but even he won't be sure until the weekend rolls around.

"You have setbacks during the course of games," Caldwell said. "You have adversity, and we've been able to overcome those. So we'll see how we bounce back and the idea is to get it behind us as quickly as we can and a lot of that has to do with just guys making up their mind, it's over and done with. But the close ones make you think about it a little bit."



REPORT CARD VS. FALCONS

--PASSING OFFENSE: B - Matthew Stafford didn't have his best day under center, but he led the Lions to the brink of an upset before the game ended with a clock runoff. Stafford finished 25-of-45 passing for 264 yards. His lone touchdown pass to Golden Tate came late in the third quarter, and he misfired on a couple opportunities to extend drives. TE Eric Ebron had two costly fourth-quarter drops, while Tate was effective with seven catches and TJ Jones had a nice day, catching all three of the passes thrown his way for 63 yards. Jones made a tough 29-yard catch on the game's final drive, when he held onto the ball despite taking a huge hit across the middle.

--RUSHING OFFENSE: C-minus - Running the ball was a struggle for a Lions offense that played without center Travis Swanson and top interior backup Joe Dahl. Left guard Graham Glasgow moved to center, Zac Kerin made his first start at guard, and the Lions struggled to get any push up the middle against the Falcons. Ameer Abdullah ran for 47 yards on 14 carries and didn't have a gain longer than 11 yards all day. Zach Zenner was ineffective, running for just 5 yards on three carries as Dwayne Washington's replacement in short-yardage situations.

--PASS DEFENSE: B-plus - Matt Ryan had gone nine games without throwing an interception before the Lions picked off three passes Sunday. Glover Quin made a great read on the pick that he returned 37 yards for a touchdown, while Darius Slay's two interceptions came off tipped passes. The Lions didn't get enough pressure on Ryan, though Anthony Zettel and Jeremiah Valoaga had sacks. Ziggy Ansah, fresh off a three-sack game, did register a single tackle, and DJ Hayden missed at least one tackle and wasn't great in coverage.

--RUSH DEFENSE: D-plus -Devonta Freeman finished with 106 yards on 21 carries, but he and the Falcons' offensive line seemed to have their way with the Lions up front. Freeman scored on a 1-yard run and was especially important in controlling the game flow early. The Lions missed Jarrad Davis in the middle of their defense. Nick Bellore started at middle linebacker and made just two tackles, though he did not play in nickel situations. Tahir Whitehead had seven tackles, including a big third-down stop on Tevin Coleman to force the Falcons' first punt.

--SPECIAL TEAMS: B-plus - Matt Prater made a bid for his second straight special teams Player of the Week award by making all four of his field-goal attempts from 35, 40, 55 and 57 yards. Prater is nearly automatic between 50-60 yards, making all 13 of his kicks from that distance going back to last year. The Lions didn't get much out of their return game, with no punt return opportunities until the fourth quarter. They allowed Andre Roberts a long kickoff return. Punter Jeff Locke had a solid 40.2-yard net average on his five punts, landing one inside the 20.

--COACHING: A-minus - It's tough to fault coaches for the way things ended. The Lions had to use their three timeouts on defense before the two-minute warning to preserve clock for the comeback, and all three of their final plays from the 1-yard line were designed to get into the end zone. The Lions didn't do enough to stop Devonta Freeman, and their offense struggled to sustain drives early, but with so much potential distractions on a day when national anthem protests were at the forefront of minds, the Lions were dialed in and played a solid all-around game.