DETROIT - Mason Crosby has never kicked as poorly as he did Sunday in his life.
In fact, the long-time Green Bay Packers kicker was so bad that even some of the Detroit Lions players who benefited from his misses felt sorry for him after Sunday's 31-23 Lions victory.
"It sucks," Lions cornerback Nevin Lawson said. "I know he probably feels terrible right now, but one thing about it, man, this is the league. Some days you're going to be on top of the world and some days you're going to be on the bottom of the earth."
Crosby was low Sunday as he missed four field goals and an extra point - 13 potential points - in the Lions' eight-point win.
He missed kicks of 41, 48 and 38 yards in the first half, plus a 56-yarder in the fourth quarter. His 42-yarder hit the right upright, as did his lone point-after attempt.
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Crosby did make his final kick of the day, a 41-yarder with 2 seconds to play, to avoid setting an NFL record for most kicks without a make in a game.
"This one unfortunately was really bad and going to have to really look at this one, and you know this one hurts a bunch," Crosby told reporters after the game. "I left a lot of points on the field for this team and I'm disappointed in my performance. And, this is, I look back, I'm thinking in my childhood, you know high school, this is definitely a lot worse. I'm bummed about that."
Crosby missed his first field goal try of 41 yards wide left in the first quarter, and the Lions took advantage of good field position after the miss - they started the ensuing drive at their own 31 - on a four-play, 69-yard touchdown drive.
Aaron Rodgers lost a fumble on Green Bay's second possession, but Crosby missed field goal attempts on each of the Packers' next two drives as the Lions built a 24-0 halftime lead.
His final miss came in the fourth quarter, when the Packers opted to try a 56-yard field goal on fourth-and-15 from the Lions' 38-yard line rather than try and convert the play.
"I never seen one like that before," Lawson said. "Not even in high school or in college. And that's surprising, too, because I still think he's a really good kicker, so that was very surprising."
Crosby said he had an "excellent" pregame warm-up and that the operation on his field goal attempts "felt good," but that he "just couldn't find the lines today."
"I just kept adjusting and it just didn't, it wasn't going in," Crosby said. "So, disappointing obviously being on that side, how we've been hitting the ball for me, that just feels like one of those days because I feel extremely, extremely good this year with how I'm striking it. So we'll just get back to work and make sure it doesn't happen again."
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LeGarrette Blount scored the Lions' first two touchdowns on 1-yard runs, and 17 of the Lions' 24 first-half points came after Packers turnovers.
The Lions, who won their third straight against the Packers for the first time since the 1990-91 seasons, dominated field position in the first half.
They started their second possession at the 1-yard line after a controversial muffed punt, when officials ruled a bouncing ball hit Packers jammer Kevin King and not Lions gunner Charles Washington, and scored one play later on Blount's first touchdown.
The Lions' third scoring drive started at the Green Bay 22, after Romeo Okwara hit Rodgers from behind to force a fumble on the second-to-last play of the first quarter, and ended in a short Matt Prater field goal. And they closed the first half with another short touchdown drive, needing just four plays to go 29 yards after a second Rodgers fumble.
Rodgers, playing without two of his top three receivers, completed 32 of 52 passes for 442 yards, but Green Bay's comeback stalled with just under 4 minutes to play when the Packers were called for an illegal shift penalty that nullified a third-and-10 conversion.
On the next play, Jarrad Davis hit Rodgers as he threw to force an incompletion and set up another Crosby miss.
Lions quarterback Matthew Stafford completed 14 of 26 passes for 183 yards, and Kenny Golladay had four catches for 98 yards and a touchdown, and had another touchdown called back on penalty.
Rookie running back Kerryon Johnson has 12 carries for 70 yards, but left in the fourth quarter with an ankle injury. The Lions also lost return man Jamal Agnew to a potentially serious knee injury.
