Lions 20, Packers 17 — Week 7: A Block, Then Bates at the Gun

Detroit beat Green Bay 20-17 at Ford Field on Sunday, and Jake Bates's 22-yard field goal with 1 second left decided it. D.J. Wonnum had blocked Trey Smack's 35-yard try in a 17-17 game with 3:25 left. 10 drives produced two touchdowns, two field goals, two lost fumbles, two failed fourth downs and two punts. The turnover margin was -1.

The passing game held its level, and expected points added (EPA), what a play is worth given down, distance and field position against what the situation was already worth, says how closely. Its 33 pass plays were worth +9.2 EPA, +0.28 a play against +0.30 in the five games before the Week 6 bye, and 54.5% were successful plays, meaning they gained what the situation asked for. Jared Goff completed 22 of 32 for 303 yards and two touchdowns without an interception. Amon-Ra St. Brown caught 9 of 11 targets for 153 yards, his most in any game this season, and Jameson Williams caught both touchdowns. The value came early: +8.4 EPA on 18 first-half pass plays, +0.8 on 15 after it. Inside the Green Bay 20 Goff completed 3 of 7, and up 17-14 late in the third, from the 6, three straight throws fell incomplete, the last for Williams on fourth and 5, -3.0 EPA and 11.2 points of win probability, the estimate of each side's chance to win.

The run game was Muffed by EPA and steady by success rate, and three snaps explain the gap. Its 32 rush plays were worth -13.3 EPA, -0.42 a play against -0.01 before the bye, yet 50% succeeded, for 120 yards. On the second snap of the third quarter, up 10-7, Goff fumbled the snap at his own 41 and Green Bay recovered, -5.9 EPA and 17 points of win probability, the biggest swing of the game. With 30 seconds left in the first half, second and 10 at the Green Bay 12, Jahmyr Gibbs ran 6 yards and fumbled, -4.5. And tied 17-17 with 4:53 left, Detroit went for it on fourth and 1 at its own 24 and Gibbs lost 2, -3.6 EPA and 12.6 points. The other 29 rush plays were worth +0.7 together. Gibbs ran 29 times for 116 yards.

The pass defense allowed less than its habit, and the split by down shows where the damage came from. Green Bay's 46 pass plays were worth +6.9 EPA, +0.15 a play against +0.22 allowed before the bye; on defense a positive number is the bad direction, so this was an improvement. Only 34.8% of them succeeded. Three fourth-down conversions through the air, 27 yards to Savion Williams, 22 to Tucker Kraft and 28 to Christian Watson, were worth +13.3 EPA between them; the other 43 pass plays came to -6.4. The stop came down 10-7 with 4:20 left in the half: fourth and 4 at the Detroit 7, Jordan Love threw short right to Matthew Golden and D.J. Reed held him to no gain, -3.0 EPA and a 12.8-point drop in Green Bay's win probability. Aidan Hutchinson sacked Love for 10 yards, and Brian Branch intercepted a third-and-21 throw early in the fourth.

The run defense beat its own standard, and success rate allowed leads the case: 31.6% of Green Bay's 19 rush plays succeeded, for 60 yards. They were worth -4.5 EPA, -0.24 a play against +0.02 allowed before the bye; here a negative number is good. Josh Jacobs, in his first game of the season, ran 11 times for 36 yards. The stand came on the opening drive: first and goal at the Detroit 6, Jacobs gained 3, then nothing at the 3 with Branch in on the tackle, and Love's third-down throw fell incomplete. After a delay-of-game penalty, Smack missed from 26.

The game turned after Gibbs's fourth-down stop. Green Bay took over at the Detroit 22 with 4:50 left and gained 5 yards in three plays, the last an incompletion deep left for Jacobs on third and 5. Wonnum blocked the 35-yarder, 9.7 points of win probability. On second and 8 at the Detroit 27, Goff hit Sam LaPorta over the middle for 18, and a roughing-the-passer penalty added 15: +2.4 EPA and 14.1 points of win probability, Detroit's biggest gain of the game by that measure. Gibbs carried the next six snaps for 37 yards as Green Bay spent all three timeouts, the last on third and 6 at the 11 after a false start: 8 yards around left end to the 3, +2.3 EPA. Goff knelt, Detroit called time with 1 second left, and Bates made it 20-17.

The Week 5 notebook asked whether the pass defense could hold a rate near +0.10 a play allowed against an offense not chasing four scores, and whether play-action would stay near 40% of Goff's dropbacks. The first came close: +0.15, and -6.4 EPA on everything but the three fourth-down conversions. Play-action waits for the charting. The one to watch next: whether a run game that succeeded on half its plays keeps the ball, and whether Goff finds the end zone from inside the 20 more often than 3 completions in 7.

That's your Lions, every game, by the numbers. Muffed does the same deep dive for all 32 teams. Follow the Lions on Muffed and next week's episode is waiting the moment it's out. No theater. Just the football.

_Data via nflverse._