The Packers-Lions game on Thursday night featured one of the most incredible finishes you will ever see, and at least some Detroit players feel they were cheated by the officials.
Aaron Rodgers connected with tight end Richard Rodgers on a game-winning Hail Mary (video here) after a controversial facemask penalty gave Green Bay one final play. Following the heartbreaking loss, Lions defensive end Darryl Tapp shared his thoughts on the crazy ending.
“It’s a hard pill to swallow,” Tapp said, via Dave Birkett of the Detroit Free Press. “We played 60 minutes. We needed to play another 10 or so phantom un-clocked seconds to take care of what we started. So that’s the part that sucks.
“This one hurts. It’s angry. It’s not like, ‘Ah, man, we could have did more,’ at this point in time for me. It’s just anger that we played and gave it our all as a team and we didn’t finish off the job.”
Let me start by saying that I do think the officials made the wrong call on the facemask play, though it’s hard to blame them for the mistake. You can watch the play and read more about that here. That said, I have trouble agreeing that the Lions played a full 60 minutes. It’s hard to lose a game that you are leading 20-0 midway through the third quarter if you put together a full 60 minutes.
The Lions had the Packers backed into a corner and got way too conservative. Matthew Stafford came out on fire, but he appeared to get happy feet and make some poor throws as Green Bay began mounting a comeback and the pressure built. Tapp and his teammates can blame the officials all they want, but the game would have never come down to a Hail Mary if the Lions played a full 60 minutes.
