DETROIT -- Jim Caldwell described it better than anyone.

For a stretch of Sunday afternoon, the Detroit Lions were “inept” offensively. They couldn’t block. They couldn’t move. They couldn’t score. They really could do nothing right.

It was evident in the numbers -- seven yards of offense in the second and third quarters.

All of this has left the Lions looking for answers during this 1-6 start and saying similar things over and over again about having to fix it and needing to get better.

The problem is, after a brief offensive surge last week against Chicago, it was back to the same old inconsistency on Sunday against Minnesota. This has been the same thing with the Lions for weeks now, especially offensively: show flashes of offensive brilliance, follow it with long stretches of, to use the Detroit coach's word, ineptitude.

“That was only in stretches,” Caldwell said. “The first quarter, I’d take that quarter any day of the week. So I’m talking about in stretches. There was a stretch there where we were inept. That’s the fact of the matter. No sugarcoating it. So I will leave it at that.”

That’s really all Caldwell can do at this point, because the same questions keep popping up. The only difference between what happened to the Lions on offense in Week 2 at Minnesota and on Sunday against the Vikings was a really strong first quarter, when everything worked offensively and Detroit gained 160 yards.

And it was in the way they played during the first quarter that gives them reason to hope. During the first quarter, Stafford was rolling, completing every pass. Minnesota didn’t sack him. The Vikings didn’t even hit him.

Then it all unraveled, so methodically and so completely.

“They were just getting pressure on us,” receiver Calvin Johnson said. “We had opportunities and sometimes the pressure kind of took that away.”

The pressure took a lot away from the Lions on offense. It took Stafford’s timing away. It meant Stafford couldn’t even finish his drop back on some plays before he had no choice but to fall down or start to backpedal into something else.

That’s no way to run an offense, and the issues remain in many places. Is Minnesota just that good against Detroit’s defense? Maybe. Was Detroit’s pass protection that porous? Absolutely. Did the play calling and decision-making by offensive coordinator Joe Lombardi and Caldwell have a part in it?

You bet.

Caldwell said the Lions couldn’t take pressure off Stafford by running the ball. That’s fair, except Detroit ran well in the first half -- 8.1 yards per carry -- before gaining just 20 yards on 10 carries in the second half.

Of course, three of those rushes came in the fourth quarter and were among the more curious calls that the Lions made all day -- and this is a season where questions about the play selection and personnel decisions by Lombardi and Caldwell are not new.

On a third-and-13 from the Detroit 29-yard line, the Lions pitched to Theo Riddick. Riddick lost a yard on a play that appeared to be destined to fail, considering Riddick has not had a rush over 9 yards during his three-year NFL career.

Two others were equally baffling.

Detroit showed offensive momentum for the first time since the first quarter on its penultimate drive of the game, getting all the way to the Minnesota 1-yard line. The Lions, after passing it on first down, chose to run on second and third down.

That’s fine, but the Lions also decided they would hand the ball to George Winn -- first carry of the season after being promoted from the practice squad on Tuesday -- on second down instead of giving it Joique Bell or Ameer Abdullah. Then they handed it to fullback Michael Burton on third down instead of either of their highly paid or highly drafted backs.

Neither player gained a yard. The use of the fullback, in some cases, makes sense. But to go with a guy who hasn’t touched the ball all season was a bit strange.

“It’s not his first day of work,” Caldwell said. “He’s been working, and we have to go with what we think works. And it didn’t work in that particular case, so ... obviously there’s always some question, but George is very capable.”

Much like a lot of what the Lions did offensively after a perfect first quarter, it failed. But it is that first quarter that the Lions are holding onto as why things can still change, even if the chances of them turning around their season have been fading for essentially a month.

“You can’t let frustration override it,” Johnson said. “You know, it’s encouraging that we could move the ball like we were. It just takes us making big plays. We make big plays, we score touchdowns. If we’re not making big plays, it’s tough to nickel-and-dime all the way down the field, you know.”

For a quarter, the Lions were the offense Johnson spoke about, the big-play, quick-strike, impossible-to-defend offense Detroit had been banking on.

Then, like so much of the Lions season, it all fluttered away.