The Detroit Lions had no way to stop Josh Allen.
Now, they are hoping their injured defense can at least stop other teams.
Detroit’s already weakened defense got even more hurt in their 48-42 loss to Allen and the Buffalo Bills on Sunday, with three key players possibly suffering season-ending injuries.
Defensive tackle Alim McNeill hurt his knee, cornerback Carlton Davis III left with a jaw injury, and backup cornerback and important special teams player Khalil Dorsey broke his right leg, which Coach Dan Campbell said was similar to Aidan Hutchinson’s season-ending injury.
“We’ll know more about Alim and (Davis) tomorrow, but I don’t feel good about either one of those guys,” Campbell said. “If I’m saying I don’t feel good about an injury, that means not good for the rest of the season.”
The Lions have more players on injured reserve than any other team in the NFL, and many of them are on defense. They’ve managed to play without Hutchinson, the league’s top pass rusher, but Allen showed how much the defense is struggling.
Not only did the Lions fail to sack Allen, but they barely pressured him at all. They only had three quarterback hits, while Allen threw for a season-high 362 yards and two touchdowns and ran for 68 yards and two more scores.
“He poses a huge issue for any team, and we knew that was going to happen,” Campbell said. “We wanted to handle him better and we just didn’t. When he makes a play, I can live with it, but what is frustrating is all the self-inflicted wounds.
“You can’t give that team anything, and I feel like we helped them a little bit.”
Buffalo’s 48 points and 559 yards don’t even show everything because Tyler Bass missed a 24-yard field goal that could have put the Bills over 50 points. This came after Buffalo lost 44-42 to the Los Angeles Rams last Sunday.
“We knew they were going to be ready to go after that tough loss out there on the West Coast,” Campbell said. “They had that urgency and we just didn’t match it. That’s on me. I didn’t have those guys ready to go for a game like that. We have a lot of guys who can play better than that, and that’s my job.”
Looking at the final score, the Lions’ offense didn’t seem that bad, with 521 total yards, including 494 from Jared Goff, losing by just six points.
Goff threw for 333 yards in the second half, but Detroit only gained seven yards rushing. Detroit was trailing 38-21 early in the fourth quarter and was still behind by two scores until they scored their final touchdown with 16 seconds left.
“If we had been able to play like that at the start of the game, maybe we would have stayed closer for the first three quarters,” Goff said. “It probably wouldn’t have felt quite so much like garbage time there at the end.
“They punched us in the mouth early and it took us too long to respond.”
Goff believes the game could still be useful in the future.
“We would have loved to win out, including the Super Bowl, but that didn’t happen,” he said. “I hope we can look back on this as a good lesson and use what we learn to win the next three games.”
