Packers 17, Lions 20 — Week 7: A Miss, a Block, a Loss at 0:01

Green Bay lost 20-17 at Detroit on Sunday on Jake Bates's 22-yard field goal with 1 second left, and it left points on the field at both ends of the game. Trey Smack missed from 26 on the opening drive, and with 3:25 left in a 17-17 game D.J. Wonnum blocked his 35-yard try. The defense took the ball away twice and won the turnover margin, +1. 10 drives produced two touchdowns, a field goal, an interception, a turnover on downs, two three-and-outs and the two failed kicks.

The passing game lived on fourth down, and success rate shows how thin it was otherwise: 34.8% of its 46 pass plays were successful plays, meaning they gained what the situation asked for. Expected points added (EPA), what a play is worth given down, distance and field position against what the situation was already worth, had them at +6.9, +0.15 a play against +0.11 through Week 6. Three fourth-down conversions through the air were worth +13.3 of that; the other 43 pass plays came to -6.4. The best came down 7-0 late in the first quarter: fourth and 2 at the Detroit 49, Jordan Love threw short over the middle to Tucker Kraft for 22 yards, +4.5 EPA, and later on the drive, on third and 9 at the 14, Kraft caught the tying touchdown, +3.2 EPA and 10.4 points of win probability, the estimate of each side's chance to win. Love completed 27 of 45 for 274 yards, two touchdowns and an interception. Matthew Golden drew 12 targets and caught 6 for 39. After halftime the 19 pass plays were worth -1.4.

The run game stayed below water, and EPA per play measures it: 19 rush plays worth -4.5 EPA, -0.24 a play against -0.265 through Week 6. Only 31.6% succeeded, for 60 yards. Josh Jacobs, in his first game of the season, ran 11 times for 36 yards, and MarShawn Lloyd 6 times for 20. Near the goal line it stalled: on the opening drive, from the Detroit 6, Jacobs gained 3 and then nothing at the 3.

The pass defense was Muffed, and EPA per play allowed measures the drop: Detroit's 33 pass plays were worth +0.28 a play, against -0.10 allowed through Week 6. On defense a positive number is the bad direction, and +9.2 in total is a lot of it. Jared Goff completed 22 of 32 for 303 yards and two touchdowns, and 54.5% of the pass plays succeeded. Amon-Ra St. Brown caught 9 of 11 targets for 153 yards, and Jameson Williams caught 5 for 91 and both touchdowns. The defense also gave Detroit five penalties: four handed it a first down, and the fifth added 15 yards to an 18-yard catch on the winning drive. One of the four was Brandon Cisse's pass interference, which erased his own interception at the Green Bay 11 late in the third. Then, from the 6, Cisse was the defender named on the third- and fourth-down incompletions that gave Green Bay the ball back.

The run defense took the ball away, and EPA allowed shows what that was worth: Detroit's 32 rush plays came to -13.3, -0.42 a play against -0.01 allowed through Week 6; here a negative number is good. Half of them still succeeded, for 120 yards. Isaiah McDuffie forced Jahmyr Gibbs's fumble at the Green Bay 6 with 30 seconds left in the half, and Green Bay recovered at the 8. On the second snap of the third quarter he recovered Goff's fumbled snap at the Detroit 42, a 17-point swing in win probability. Five plays later, on third and 6 at the 25, Love threw short left to Jacobs and he ran it in for a 14-10 lead, +3.6 EPA. Tied 17-17 with 4:53 left, Keisean Nixon stopped Gibbs for a 2-yard loss on fourth and 1 at the Detroit 24, 12.6 points of win probability.

The game turned on what came after that stop. Green Bay started at the Detroit 22 and gained 5 yards in three plays: Jacobs for no gain, a 5-yard catch, then on third and 5 at the 17, a deep throw to the left for Jacobs that fell incomplete, 8.6 points of win probability. Wonnum blocked the 35-yarder, 9.7 more. Detroit then went from its own 25 to the Green Bay 3 behind a roughing-the-passer penalty and Gibbs, who carried seven times for 39 yards on the drive, while Green Bay spent all three timeouts. Bates made it 20-17.

Last week's notebook asked whether 6 drops in a game was one afternoon, and whether a run game that succeeded on 29.2% of its carries could give Love a second way to move the ball. The drops wait for the charting. The run game did not become that second way: 31.6% and -0.24 a play, in Jacobs's first game. The one to watch next: whether the passing game moves the chains before fourth down, after -6.4 EPA on everything else here, and whether a pass defense that allowed +0.28 a play gets back to the -0.10 it carried through Week 6.

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

_Data via nflverse._