Grading Detroit Lions loss to Seahawks: Turnovers to blame, not Campbell's time management

Detroit Free Press sports writer Dave Birkett grades the Detroit Lions in their 37-31 overtime loss to the Seattle Seahawks at Ford Field.

Quarterback

Jared Goff’s interception-less streak came to an end at 383 straight passes, but his pick Sunday was “more on the route” than it was him, Lions coach Dan Campbell said. That crucial turnover aside, Goff played well Sunday. He completed 28 of 35 passes with a couple throw-aways for 323 yards and three touchdowns. Goff started the day with nine consecutive completions and he made a big-time throw to fit a pass into a tight window to Amon-Ra St. Brown on the series after David Montgomery lost a fumble. The Lions seemed to answer every big Seahawks score with a drive, in no small part thanks to Goff. He gets dinged slightly because of the turnover – he said the route was fine and he should have thrown it more inside. But he played well enough for the Lions to win. Grade: A-minus

INSTANT REACTION: Detroit Lions suffer devastating 37-31 OT loss to Seattle Seahawks

Running backs

Montgomery’s fumble on the first offensive snap of the second half was a killer. The Lions had the ball coming out of the locker room with a chance to go up two scores and instead found themselves tied less than a minute into the third quarter. Montgomery played well aside from that mistake. He’s a brute-force running the ball. He broke a tackle by Darrell Taylor on his second carry of the game and had 67 yards on 16 carries before leaving with an injury. Rookie Jahmyr Gibbs (seven carries, 17 yards) was Goff’s intended receiver on the interception and had a costly drop on a slant pass just before halftime that would have gone for a long gain. The Lions have a dangerous backfield, but their errors Sunday were hard to overlook. Grade: C

Receivers/tight ends

St. Brown was his usual reliable self with six catches for 102 yards despite playing much of the game with a toe injury. St. Brown did have a fumble on the final play of the first half, one of three Lions turnovers on the day. Sam LaPorta (five catches, 63 yards) and Josh Reynolds (5-66) both had key catches for the Lions. Reynolds scored two touchdowns and LaPorta caught a third-and-12 pass with a defender draped on him and spun off two tacklers on a 23-yard catch-and-run on the Lions’ final TD drive. LaPorta did get trucked by Uchenna Nwosu, when Nwosu forced Montgomery’s fumble, but he made the key block to usher Montgomery into the end zone on his touchdown run. Reynolds also was flagged for a questionable offensive pass interference penalty that negated a touchdown pass. Grade: B

DON'T PANIC YET: Detroit Lions have earned goodwill, but Seahawks loss felt too familiar

Offensive line

Goff had a clean pocket to work out of most of the day, though the Lions’ offensive line had a couple rough snaps after Halapoulivaati Vaitai went down with a knee injury. Running back Craig Reynolds allowed Seattle’s first sack of the day, and Dre’mont Jones had the second after Nwosu knocked Vaitai’s replacement, Graham Glasgow, on his heels to force Goff to step up in the pocket. Vaitai made the key trap block on Montgomery’s 16-yard run in the second quarter, and left guard Jonah Jackson had a nice kick-out block on the second level on the same run. Jackson did draw one holding penalty, and he and Penei Sewell had a nice double-team block on Montgomery’s TD. Matt Nelson played a relatively clean game at right tackle, with Sewell moving to the left side in Taylor Decker’s absence. Grade: A-minus

Defensive line

Sunday’s game felt like a missed opportunity for the Lions' pass rush playing against a Seahawks team playing with two backup offensive tackles and that lost starting center Evan Brown during the game. Geno Smith did a good job getting rid of the ball quickly, but the Lions’ defensive line did not record a sack for the second straight game. Aidan Hutchinson had a heady jumping pass deflection to help the Lions get off the field on one Seattle drive late in the fourth quarter, and he and Charles Harris had pressures that set Alex Anzalone up for the Lions’ only sack. Hutchinson did miss a tackle for loss on Kenneth Walker in the first half and Harris got a little too wide in his rush lane on Geno Smith’s 15-yard scramble. Alim McNeill wasn’t on the field for Walker’s first touchdown run, when Benito Jones and Levi Onwuzurike got driven back by the offensive line. Grade: B

Linebackers

Anzalone had seven tackles to go with his sack, including one instinctive play when he came off his tight end in coverage to stop Jaxson Smith-Njigba for no gain on a bubble screen. Anzalone did bite on a run fake on a 16-yard completion to Will Dissly in the third quarter, then missed the first tackle after Dissly’s catch, but the linebacking corps played well overall. Derrick Barnes (seven tackles) made a couple of stops on Walker at the line of scrimmage, beating Brown for one tackle and tight end Noah Fant on another. James Houston did get beat in coverage on Fant’s 31-yard catch, but that’s not a good matchup for him. Malcolm Rodriguez made a big tackle to haul Zach Charbonnet down in-bounds and keep the clocking running late in the first half, then got beat on a play-action pass to Dissly in the third quarter. Grade: A-minus

Defensive backs

Smith finished 32 of 41 passing for 328 yards, and while the Seahawks didn’t hit any big plays deep against the Lions' secondary, Seattle did convert two third downs on its overtime touchdown drive. DK Metcalf caught a third-and-6 pass on Jerry Jacobs, and Tyler Lockett got just enough separation on Brian Branch for the game-winning score. C.J. Gardner-Johnson and Jacobs tied for the team lead with eight tackles, though Gardner-Johnson and Kerby Joseph both missed tackles on Walker’s first carry of 14 yards. Gardner-Johnson also had a costly personal foul on the opening drive, Jacobs was called for pass interference in the end zone and Joseph drew a facemask flag that was part of offsetting penalties with Metcalf. Grade: B-minus

ANYONE HAVE EAR PLUGS? Detroit Lions' home crowd was ready to blow, but team couldn't deliver spark to light fuse

Special teams

Riley Patterson won the kicking job in part because the Lions trust him in key situations, and Patterson delivered with a 38-yard game-tying field goal on the final play of regulation. Jack Fox boomed his only punt 53 yards, and the Lions’ kickoff team stopped DeeJay Dallas short of the 25-yard line on Fox’s well-placed first kickoff. Kalif Raymond had a 17-yard punt return to set up Patterson’s field goal. Grade: A

Coaching

The Seahawks have had the Lions’ number for three years straight now, but I thought the Lions had a good game plan. Ben Johnson showed his creativity, with a slick slot shovel pass to St. Brown to convert a fourth down a couple plays after lining Montgomery up for a wildcat snap, and the Lions saw enough in film study to know they could hit Devon Witherspoon with the flea-flicker touchdown Goff threw to Raymond. Defensively, Aaron Glenn sent an array of blitzes after Smith, including a double-corner blitz in the second half. I don’t have any issues with Dan Campbell’s clock management. The Lions had plenty of time (and timeouts) to score a touchdown if they got in position on their final drive, and I didn’t mind the fourth-and-2 Campbell went for late in the third quarter, even though it backfired. Campbell tried to spin Sunday’s loss that it could be a positive for the Lions, to keep them focused on the task at hand rather than the hype surrounding their team. I’m sure he’d prefer a win, and the Lions might have pulled off the victory if they didn’t have so many turnovers. Grade: A-minus

Contact Dave Birkett at dbirkett@freepress.com. Follow him on Twitter @davebirkett.

This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Grading Detroit Lions loss to Seahawks: Goff plays well in defeat