Philip Rivers and Matthew Stafford both had good days. Stafford went 24 for 42 for 336 yards, 3 touchdowns and 1 interception. However, he also lost a costly fumble for the Lions and that interception was a pick-six for the Indianapolis Colts. He got 8 different receivers involved…would have been 9 had Kenny Golladay not been injured (hopefully he’s not out for too long).
Rivers got 11 different receivers involved. No Colts receiver caught more than 3 balls.
Next week we return home and face Philip Rivers and the Indianapolis Colts. It should be every bit as exciting as this one was. The man of the day for Indy was Nyheim Hines who caught 3 for 54 and 2 touchdowns (and had two very impressive touchdown celebration flips).
So, with all of that being relatively even…where did Detroit go wrong? ON THE GROUND/WITH THE RUN!!! The Indianapolis Colts weren’t great, only gaining 119 yards on 39 carries (3.1 yards per carry), but Detroit abandoned the run altogether and was abysmal when they did go to it. They had just 13 carries for 29 yards (2.2 yards per carry).
The Time of Possession was also telling, as it was in the Colts’ favor 37:46 to 22:14. The Colts had just 3 penalties for 19 yards, so nothing too costly. The Lions did well in terms of total penalties, having just 4, but they were 76 yards, most notably a spot foul pass interference call on a 3rd and 14. Lastly, the Lions turned the ball over twice and the Colts did not have a turnover.
The game didn’t feel like a 20-point blowout necessarily, but it was never in real question in the second half, and Indy controlled the game for the most part. They improve to 5-2 and the Lions fall to 3-4.
Here are my immediate thoughts and my postgame fan reaction.