BALTIMORE -- The last two weeks, the Detroit Lions said they understood how important games against Minnesota and Baltimore were for the franchise’s postseason future.

But you'd never know it considering the way Detroit played in both of those games, both losses, both games where the Lions never led and were barely close once. And that's all you need to know about Detroit this season after a 44-20 loss to Baltimore.

This is not a playoff team this season. It hasn’t played like one in games that have mattered later in the season, and now there are few playoff scenarios that would allow it to reach the postseason without implosions from multiple other teams in the NFC.

And Sunday's loss came with a meltdown. Yes, the final score was aided by a late pick-six by Jake Rudock after Matthew Stafford suffered a right hand injury. But the way the Lions played throughout the day was about as ugly as the score indicated.

It happened in an all-too-familiar way -- showing deep-rooted issues that probably can’t be fixed.

"It wasn't pretty," Lions coach Jim Caldwell said. "I can just tell you I didn't do a very good job. Just didn't do a good job of, starting missed field goals, a couple drops here, miscues in scoring territory. We fought our way back in it. The third quarter was a pretty hot quarter for us. Our defense was stopping people. Our offense was moving the ball.

"Get within one score and then the bottom falls out. Same thing. I just got to do a better job."

There was the slow start -- again. There was the inability to reach the end zone efficiently in the first half, being shut out before halftime for the first time all season. That’s a coaching issue, one that can’t seem to be solved no matter what the Lions do or say.

And that’s the thing. For a good chunk of the season, Detroit had time to fix these things. The Lions ended up trailing by double digits in the second half for the fourth straight game. And for the second week in a row, in a second game where it was reasonable to think the Lions had to have the game to stay in a good position for the playoffs, Detroit showed no sense of early urgency. They looked unprepared at the start.

The coaches and players can blame execution -- something they’ve done often in trying to discuss the slow starts -- but it seems to be more than that. This is just emblematic of who this Lions team is -- and it’s what will cost the Lions a real shot at the postseason.

"Football is a funny thing," Caldwell said. "It just happens. It's tough to explain sometimes but one of the things, you know what the issues are. The issues are that you're not playing well. We're not playing well enough and I got to do a better job coaching as well."

As has been their pattern this season, the Lions were competitive in the second half on Sunday -- at least until the Ravens tied a team record with 24 points scored in the fourth quarter. But in the first half Sunday -- as in previous games this season -- they looked like they didn’t belong in the same stadium as their opponent.

Sunday's loss should be embarrassing for Detroit save for Matthew Stafford, who kept the Lions in the game with 20 straight completions before injuring his throwing hand on an interception in the fourth quarter that sealed the game.

The defense consistently bit on play-action. The offense took a half to wake up -- and that’s not a way to beat teams that are any good.

Then there’s the coaching. For the second straight week, the Lions were caught in a critical play with fewer than 11 men on the field. Last week, 10 men on the field helped Minnesota throw a touchdown pass to Kyle Rudolph. This week, nine men were on the field when the Lions allowed a critical third-down conversion to Chris Moore for 27 yards that set up a touchdown to give the Ravens a 14-point lead. It was the start of the massive opening that led to the blowout.

"That's wrong. It should never happen," Caldwell said. "That's my fault."

It's the second straight week Caldwell has taken blame for it and it's similar to issues the Lions had in 2015, when they had 10 men on the field for a critical field-goal attempt by the Packers and had personnel issues on special teams the following week as well. It was a complete failure by the Lions at a time when they couldn’t afford to have it. And unless something unexpected happens, it could end up keeping the Lions out of the postseason.

"We've got to figure it out," safety Glover QuinGlover Quin said. "Time is running out."