Amid Packers’ bevy of self-inflicted mistakes, this Jordan Love 'critical error' was a game-changer

In the wake of the Green Bay Packers’ 24-14 loss to the Detroit Lions on Sunday afternoon at Lambeau Field — a defeat that turned in large part on the Packers quarterback’s end-of-the-half pick-6 interception — Love had no problem owning the mistake he’d made or the alarming trend line of throwing at least one interception in every game he’s played this season.

“It’s definitely disappointing. I’m putting the ball in jeopardy way too many times, and definitely something I have to clean up,” Love acknowledged after the Packers (6-3) fell to the Lions (7-1) in what was billed as their first season-defining matchup of the season.

“I’ve talked about it week after week. I’ve just got to learn from these mistakes and clean it up. But it’s definitely something that I’m going to make a big focus on going forward, of just finding ways to take care of the ball better.”

The problem Love had, though, was articulating exactly how he fixes the issue — especially since the out-of-character glut of interceptions is such a departure from the way he played during the second half of last season.

Over the final eight regular-season games of his inaugural year as the starting quarterback, Love completed 70.3% of his passes for 2,150 yards with 18 touchdowns and just one interception (112.7 passer rating).

Sunday’s interception, which Lions safety Kerby Joseph returned 27 yards for a touchdown to turn a 10-3 Lions lead into a 17-3 advantage — a lead that ballooned to 24-3 when Detroit scored on the opening possession of the second half — with 32 seconds left until halftime, Love enters the bye week having completed 61.3% of his passes for 1,820 yards with 15 touchdowns and 10 INTs (88.2 rating) while playing just 7½ games this season because of injuries.

“He’s competing. We know that we’ve got to take care of the football. But I don’t question anything about what he’s trying to do,” Packers coach Matt LaFleur said while admitting the barrage of interception-related questions had become “really annoying” during his post-game Q&A session with reporters. “We’ve just got to do it better.”

That’s fine, but as LaFleur admitted, the interception was “a big-time play in the game,” as the mistake-prone Packers — despite the 10 penalties, five dropped passes, three bobbled/errant shotgun snaps and one missed field goal they had over the course of the game — would have only been down 7 points heading into halftime.

Instead, with the Lions driving 71 yards in nine plays en route to Jahmyr Gibbs’ 15-yard touchdown run to open the third quarter, Detroit’s lead was 24-3 and the Packers were in full-on catch-up mode the rest of the way as the game-long deluge of rain never abated.

“Certainly, you can’t put yourself in a situation where it becomes a game where you’re throwing it almost every down. I don’t think that’s going to be winning football, especially in these types of elements,” LaFleur said. “Just way too many mistakes, and you cannot do that against a good football team, because they’re going to make you pay.”

LaFleur lauded Love for playing through his groin injury, and acknowledged that the combination of less-than-stellar weather and limited practice work — Love didn’t practice at all on Wednesday, did only individual drill work on Thursday and had limited team work on Friday, LaFleur said — didn’t help his cause.

“Obviously he wasn’t at full strength, and for him to go out there and be able to battle through, I thought that was big of him,” LaFleur said.

At the same time, LaFleur didn’t completely absolve Love of the decision he made on the interception.

The play came on a second-and-2 from the Green Bay 38-yard line. Love was under pressure and, as he tried to dump the ball off to running back Josh Jacobs, Joseph appeared from the crowd of players blocking Love’s view to snare the underthrown ball and return it to the end zone.

“When it goes off-schedule, you’ve just got to be smart. You’ve got to be smart with the football in a one-possession game,” LaFleur said. “I know he’s doing everything in his power to make the play, but sometimes …”

Love finished that sentence for LaFleur later.

“Critical error,” said Love, who finished the day 23 of 39 for 273 yards with no touchdowns and the one interception for a passer rating of 69.7. “It obviously did not go where I wanted it to.

“It just comes down to staying true with my reads and if plays do go off schedule, just (remembering) that fine line of being smart with the ball and not putting it in harm’s way — balance trying to make a play versus throwing it away and living to fight another day, making great decisions and doing a better job of just being stingy with the ball.”

The interception wasn’t the only play that decided the game, of course. The Packers’ self-inflicted mistakes dotted the entire game and the offense’s inefficiency both on third down (3 of 12) and in the red zone (1 of 4) rendered their 411 total yards of offense largely meaningless.

The defense, meanwhile, thwarted a Lions outfit that had scored a franchise-record 172 points over the previous four games but failed to generate a turnover; couldn’t get consistent pressure on Lions quarterback Jared Goff (18 of 22 for 145 yards with one sack, one touchdown and no interceptions for a 109.3 rating); and struggled to slow down the Lions’ dynamic running back duo of David Montgomery (17 carries, 73 yards) and Gibbs (11 carries, 65 yards).

More importantly, the Lions played a “clean” — LaFleur’s word — game while the Packers did not.

“We knew that coming in here, there were a number of things (to focus on),” Lions coach Dan Campbell said. “We talked about run game supremacy. We talked about explosives — as crazy as that sounds in that type of weather — but whoever could come up with the most explosives. (And) field position and turnover ratio.

“The fact that we took care of the football — we preached it all week, we worked it (with) wet ball drills every day at practice outdoors — our guys really did a great job. Goff took great care of the football, and it was the difference.”

Nevertheless, Love exited Sunday’s loss feeling no less confident about his team.

“Obviously a disappointing game, been a couple disappointing losses, but we are still a really good football team,” Love said. “I think some of the stuff is more self-inflicted — the mistakes, and the penalties and the turnovers — and all stuff that we can clean up.

“Like I’ve said before, we haven’t played our best game. We have a lot of football left in front of us when we come off the bye week. So (we’ll) just hit the ground running when we get back.”