Detroit Lions Week 7 Studs and Duds: Matthew Stafford’s clutch magic returns

In the battle of two of the worst fourth-quarter teams, the Detroit Lions returned to their 2016 form to coordinate a clutch comeback in the final minute of the game.

This was a rollercoaster of a game, full of some really great plays, and some that were, well, not-so-great.

Here are Lions studs and duds against the Falcons:

Stud: Matthew Stafford

In just about every stat, this was Stafford’s best game of the season. The 32-year-old quarterback had 25 completions on 36 attempts for 340 yards and a touchdown.

That touchdown, of course, was the game-winner as the clock hit zero to tight end T.J. Hockenson. Stafford’s fourth-quarter heroics helped the Lions eke out a win and move to 3-3 on the season.

Despite being pressured on what felt like every time he dropped back, Stafford showed some much-needed mobility in the pocket and also managed not to turnover the ball even once.

Dud: Adrian Peterson

The Lions backfield played poorly today, and Peterson had some especially bad plays. In one instance, Peterson ran back-to-back draw plays for little to no gain and the Lions then had to settle for a field goal.

Peterson isn’t to blame as much as the play calling, but the veteran running back was still disappointing with his 2.6 yards-per-carry.

Studs: Trey Flowers and Romeo Okwara

The two Lions defensive ends both deserve to be listed as studs together for the big, game-saving plays they made.

Flowers must have played cornerback in another life, because his pass breakup on a fourth-down from Matt Ryan was just impressive. Flowers initially laid a block on Julio Jones at the line, and was able to shed it and get in front of a pass to Ito Smith to bat the ball away.

While his heroics were followed by a missed field goal, the defensive end was able to come back big on the next defensive drive.

On a Falcons third-and-10, Romeo Okwara was able to get to Matt Ryan for a sack, where he stripped the ball and Flowers was able to recover and take it an extra four yards down the field. This crucial turnover helped propel the Lions to a 16-14 lead near the end of the game.

Dud: Jesse James

James signed a four-year, $22.5 million dollar deal to come to Detroit last season, and has yet to prove that he deserves any of that money.

The 26-year-old tight end was not targeted once in this game. In fact, his only contribution to this game was a holding penalty that negated a big run from D’Andre Swift.

Studs: Kenny Golladay, Marvin Jones, and Danny Amendola

The trio of wide receivers all did their fair share to move the sticks in this game. Golladay was the most clutch of the three, as he was the reason the team was able to pull off a winning drive in the last minute of the game. He finished with six catches for 114 yards.

Amendola and Jones both had their best games of the season, with three catches for 62 yards and five catches for 80 yards, respectively.

This was the second-best receiving corps last season, and it looked a lot like it again today.

Dud: The pass rush

Despite two of Detroit’s defensive ends being named studs just a few paragraphs up, the pass rush as a whole did not play well.

Matt Ryan was sacked twice, both times by Okwara, but the Lions squandered plenty more opportunities to get to the quarterback.

The play that emphasized this the most was in the second quarter, where the Lions put plenty of pressure on Ryan and both Jahlani Tavai and Danny Shelton were able to land hits on the quarterback. Unfortunately, neither were able to take him down and Ryan threw for a first down.

The pass rush generated pressure well in this game but always seemed like they were just one second too late from making a play.

Stud: Tracy Walker

Walker showed up early on defense. In the second quarter, he put some good coverage onto Falcons tight end Luke Stocker and defended a pass that would have gone for a touchdown.

Later on in the game, with just seven minutes left in the fourth quarter, Walker broke through his block and was able to take Todd Gurley down in the backfield for a loss of yards.

Dud: Halapoulivaati Vaitai

Vaitai still has not acclimated well to the right guard position.

He struggled a lot against Atlanta’s defensive line and allowed a tackle-for-loss on D’Andre Swift on a key fourth-quarter drive.

With another game like that, let’s hope that the Lions come to their senses and swap him out for Joe Dahl real soon.

Stud: Todd Gurley

The biggest stud for the Lions was Atlanta’s star running back.

All Gurley had to do was not score a touchdown with about a minute left in the game. Despite his efforts, he somehow screwed that up.

Because of that, the Lions got the ball with 1:04 left on the clock; ample time for Stafford to orchestrate his all-too-familiar game-winning drive.