Lions vs. Vikings Week 5 Report Card: Another week, another heartbreak for Detroit

For the second time in three weeks, the Detroit Lions held a 17-16 lead with under a minute left against a team whose main color is purple. They lost both games on last-second field goals.

It’s truly spectacular to see the ways Detroit manages to lose games, through 58 minutes this game seemed like it would be a loss. But of course, they had to give their fans some hope just to rip out their hearts in the end anyway.

The run game was pretty good, averaging over 4.4 per carry against the Vikings. But that’s it, the end of the list of good things from this offense.

This was an absolutely putrid effort from this pass offense, terrible execution all around. Sure they scored a touchdown and a two-point conversion to take the lead late, but they only could do that because they were set up with a short field.

We will get into Jared Goff in a moment, but first the offensive line. That was bad, as the Vikings had four sacks and a created a ton of pressure all game. Penei Sewell gave up back-to-back sacks to Everson Griffen early, as he had another rough game playing on a bad ankle that impacted his practice availability last week.

The Vikings’ defense completely doused Detroit’s offense for 99% of this game.

Swift wasn’t as dominant as he’s been in past performances, but this was a huge bounce back for the second-year back. Swift crossed 100 total yards including the lone Detroit touchdown in this game.

He also did this:

The Lions are at their best when Swift is going, and it’s really fun to watch him work.

Part of me feels bad for Goff, everyone on social media is just absolutely ripping into this guy for his play.

But on the other hand, he has been pretty bad so far this season. And that trend continued in this game, but it got worse. In the first four games of the season, Goff would play well in one half and bad in the other half. He played poorly for the entire game on Sunday, except for one 20-yard drive and a two-point conversion.

Yes, the turnovers are a big part of what is so frustrating about Goff, but it goes further. His accuracy seems off if he’s forced to pass past the sticks, and his pocket presence can be hard to watch. If there’s a defender charging at him, he’s going to be sacked. He won’t throw it away, he won’t evade the rush, he just goes down.

It was so bad that Dan Campbell had no choice but to punt on a 4th-and-four in Vikings territory in the middle of the fourth quarter.