By Michael Stets
What a difference playing a good quarterback makes. The Lions, who faced the likes of Scott Tolizien and Christian Hackenburg in their first two preseason games, had to face Tom Brady and the Superbowl-Champion New England Patriots on Friday night.
It did not go well for the Honolulu blue and silver.
Brady carved up the Lions in the opening quarter, tossing a pair of touchdowns to Chris Hogan, and the Patriots were off and rolling. After Mike Gillislee scored from one yard out and Stephen Gostkowski connected on a 46-yard field goal, New England took a commanding 24-0 after the first quarter.
By comparison, the Lions four first-quarter offensive possessions resulted in a fumble and three punts and only one first down. On the Lions’ first drive of the second quarter, Stafford was picked off by Eric Rowe–the result of a tipped pass. With just over a minute, the Lions finally got on the score board when Stafford threw a 23-yard touchdown pass to Marvin Jones.
At halftime the Patriots were up 24-7. Tom Brady was 12-15 for 174 yards with one touchdown and one interception, and Chris Hogan led all receivers with four receptions for 70 yards. Patriots receiver Julian Edelman was carted off the field in the first quarter with a knee injury, which is believed to be an ACL tear.
“Getting behind by that kind of deficit early on was not something, obviously, we typically have happen to us,” Caldwell told Jim Brandstatter after the game, “but sometimes that happens to you in games and you have to find a way to fight back. We weren’t proud of the way we got there but certainly proud of the way the guys fought back to at least give us a chance at the end of the game.”
Stafford was still under center for the Lions in the third quarter, and drove the offense down for another score on a nine-play, 88-yard drive, connecting with Dwayne Washington on an 18-yard touchdown pass to pull within 10 points of the Patriots at 24-14. Stafford finished the game 15-22 for 190 yards, two touchdowns and one interception.
Backup quarterback Jake Rudock looked good in relief–albeit against the Patriots backups–leading the offensive on two scoring drives. Rudock threw an 11-yard touchdown pass to Jarred Abbrederis, and Dwayne Washington scored on a five-yard touchdown run to take a 28-24 lead in the fourth quarter.
Gostkowski, who missed an extra point in the first quarter, hit a 25-yard field goal to cut the Lions’ lead to 28-27, and hit the game-winning kick from 45-yards with two seconds lift to earn the 30-28 victory for New England.
Despite the poor showing from the Lions’ starters, Caldwell said there are some positives to take from the loss.
“Really that’s what the preseason is for,” Caldwell said. You get a chance to really look at your personnel. You have an opportunity to see where you might be deficient and need some work and those kinds of things. Obviously, this is a team that will stress you in every single area, so in that regard it was good for us. We would still like the score board in our favor but nevertheless I think there are some things that we can learn from and we can still get better.”
The Lions close out their preseason on Thursday, August 31 on the road against the Buffalo Bills at New Era Field.