4 Packers to blame after watching NFC North hopes slip away against the Lions

Another showdown with the Detroit Lions, another loss that will have Green Bay Packers fans tearing their hair out. Jared Goff drove the Lions offense down the field in the final minutes, and some more bold fourth-down decisions from Dan Campbell set up a game-winning field goal from Jake Bates as Detroit topped the Packers in a 34-31 thriller on Thursday night — the Lions' fifth win in six tries against their division rivals.

It's a huge missed opportunity for Green Bay. Detroit entered the game missing a ton of key personnel, especially on the defensive side of the ball, and a win would have put the NFC North back up for grabs ahead of a brutal closing schedule for the Lions. Instead, it's another near miss, one that essentially dashed the Packers' hopes of a division title. Green Bay is still in great position for a Wild Card spot, but that won't much matter if the team can't figure out a way to finally get past its nemesis when the chips are down. And for that to happen, some key players and coaches are going to have to step it up.

4. DC Jeff Hafley

The Packers were short-handed on defense as well, and the Packers deserve credit for showing a ton of fight on Thursday night. But all that effort didn't translate into stops, as the Lions put up nearly 400 yards of offense and five yards per play — including a back-breaking four-minute drill that bled the rest of the clock and set up Bates' game-winner as time expired.

There's only so much that Hafley can do when his secondary is so undermanned. But Detroit picked on Green Bay's linebackers all night long, hitting crosser after crosser over the middle of the field, and Hafley never found a way to make an adjustment. Those sorts of plays are the bread and butter of the Lions offense; how many times can a linebacker fail to get sufficient depth into his zone before it starts becoming a coaching issue?

3. CB Eric Stokes

We mentioned that Green Bay's defense was undermanned on Thursday, and nowhere was that more apparent than in the secondary, where Stokes got absolutely abused all night long. Whenever the Lions managed to get him isolated, their receivers had a field day, including on an easy touchdown to Tim Patrick in the third quarter to put Detroit back in front 24-21.

With Jaire Alexander out and Keisean Nixon bumped inside to the slot against Amon-Ra St. Brown, there are only so many places for Stokes to hide. But he's simply unplayable right now, and it falls on Hafley and Brian Gutekunst to develop depth that's at least better than what Stokes is putting out there right now. If they can't, or if Alexander can't get healthy soon, teams are going to continue to pick on an obvious weak point.

2. Jayden Reed

One target, one drop, zero catches, zero yards. The stat line tells you everything you need to know about Reed's night, made all the more embarrassing by all the smack he talked to St. Brown back in October about what he would do when the Packers came to Detroit.

Rather than step up, Reed disappeared. His drops are becoming a genuine problem at this point, and it's clear that he's losing the trust of both Matt LaFleur and Jordan Love. Green Bay has depth to work with, but especially with Romeo Doubs out, they desperately need Reed to become a reliable ball-winner on the outside and over the middle of the field. He's nowhere close to that right now, and Love and this offense suffered a bit as a result.

1. LB Isaiah McDuffie

We mentioned that Green Bay got picked apart over the middle of the field, and while McDuffie wasn't the only culprit here, he was certainly the most glaring. Detroit's offense is brutally difficult to play against, full off play-fakes and eye candy, and that's especially true for thumpers like McDuffie that don't excel in space.

McDuffie was his typical hard-nosed self in the run game, thumping David Montgomery and Jahmyr Gibbs and helping to bottle up a backfield that's notoriously hard to tackle. But he just doesn't have the athletic chops to survive Ben Johnson's passing attack, and he was frequently caught out of position on Thursday night, a step or two (or three) slow to fill his zone in the middle of the field and allowing Patrick, Sam LaPorta and Jameson Williams to get whatever they wanted without much resistance. If these teams meet for a third time in the playoffs, expect Johnson to be licking his chops.