FIRST DOWN: DEFENSIVE DAY

Cardinals quarterback Kyler Murray had a perfect passer rating (158.3) in a blowout win against the Rams last week. A week later, Murray (76.5) wasn’t even halfway to a perfect rating against a Lions defense that really stepped up to the challenge this week, helping Detroit bounce back by defeating the Cardinals, 20-13.

“(Aaron Glenn) AG had a great game plan,” Lions head coach Dan Campbell said after the win. “I thought those guys played really great on defense. I thought the three-and-outs in the second half, the sudden changeup after the turnover offensively, defense coming out and getting a huge stop, the fourth-down stop, the turnover, everything. It was good.”

The Cardinals entered Sunday averaging 34.5 points per game, but they only managed 13 points against the Lions. They had just 277 yards of total offense, 77 yards rushing and were just 1-of-9 on third down.

““I think it was our best defensive game I’ve ever been a part of, just collectively,” Lions edge rusher Aidan Hutchinson said. “It’s not like we tackled the quarterback that much. But I think with what they gave us, we executed the game plan really well.”

After scoring 20 points in the first half, the Lions’ offense slowed down a bit in the second half. However, the defense persevered and allowed only three points, with fantastic complementary football.

“Our defense is playing really well right now,” said quarterback Jared Goff, who completed 18 of 23 passes for 199 yards with two touchdowns and a 113.6 passer rating. “That’s three straight games where they’ve done some good things. We’d like to open that game up and make it a three-score, four-score game and end it a lot sooner, but they hung in there and made some plays for us and got us when we needed them and at the end of the game we (offense) were able to close it out.”

This looks like it might be one of the top 10 defenses in Detroit.