Such an awful game is only deserving of one takeaway: bad.

It was slated to be a tough matchup for the Detroit Lions. The Baltimore Ravens were no slouches, and the Lions needed to bring their A-game to keep pace with the top teams in the league.

They didn’t even bring their Z-game.

The Lions were trounced from start to finish on Sunday by a score I don’t even want to post. Despite coming into the game riding high, the Lions fell flat beyond all expectations. Detroit was shaping up to be a Super Bowl challenger, but a loss like this is a brutal wake-up call.

With such a one-sided affair, there’s only one takeaway:

Ugly

There’s no sugarcoating it. That was one of the worst losses for the Dan Campbell era of Lions football. The Lions Looked completely outmatched against the Ravens on Sunday. Every facet of the team, save punter Jack Fox, monumentally struggled.

The offense could not accomplish anything, struggling to generate first downs until the game became out of reach. Jared Goff looked like 2021 Jared Goff, was rattled and delivering anything but crisp throws. The pass blocking fell apart, allowing numerous sacks and forcing Goff into uncomfortable downs—this doesn’t even factor in the holding penalties that killed multiple drives. The massive deficit meant steering away from the run game, leaving Jahmyr Gibbs as mostly an afterthought until the game’s outcome was already decided. Even Amon-Ra St. Brown had a drop and a few bobbles. Seeing Malcolm Rodriguez at fullback was fun, but it amounted to nothing in the grand scheme.

The defense, meanwhile, looked invisible against Lamar Jackson. Jackson was picking apart the secondary all game, while comfortably navigating any semblance of a pass rush Detroit threw his way. The run defense, arguably their greatest strength this season, was gutted by Jackson, Gus Edwards, and Justice Hill. The secondary looked undisciplined and uncoordinated, giving massive cushions to nearly every Ravens target. Jack Campbell and Will Harris in particular had dreadful outings, though few players on the defensive side of the ball will have a positive tape.

For a team sitting at 5-1 entering Week 7, the Lions looked like a team sitting at 1-5 instead. The Lions were always going to lose a game or two as the season progressed, but losing a game like this is a gut punch to the team and fans. This was reminiscent of the Matt Patricia-led teams when watching the Lions was equivalent to wasting an afternoon.

The sky has not fallen, and the Lions are still a good team with a fairly soft schedule ahead. Yet a loss like this will linger in everyone’s mind. What if the Lions collapse like this when the season is on the line? The Lions will face the Las Vegas Raiders next week before their mid-season bye, and it is crucial for them to ease some of their worries against a lesser opponent. Detroit needs to prove they can again rebound from a drubbing. Their overtime loss to the Seattle Seahawks was met with a shutdown of the Atlanta Falcons. Can they muster a similar response?

John’s Turning Point: Nothing

This game was over from the onset. I suppose you could say the turning point was the opening coin toss, for Baltimore was in control of the game and never looked back.

Burn the tape and move on.