The Detroit Lions head to their bye week at 3-3 after Sunday's loss to the Saints in New Orleans.

It's never ideal to enter the bye week after a loss, especially a loss in which the Lions were thoroughly outplayed most of the contest.

**How do the Lions keep their 52-38 loss from festering a bit longer with the extra time off?

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Maybe Lions head coach Jim Caldwell doesn't mind Sunday's game festering for a bit longer. He hopes his players use it as motivation for a better played post-bye 10 games.

"Sometimes festering's a good thing," Caldwell said. "So, we try to balance it and it kind of depends on where we are as a team and how we see it and we adjust it in that regard. But there's nothing wrong with being really determined about making certain you correct your errors.

"So, it just kind of depends on the week. When you got one right away, you certainly try to get it behind you within a relatively short period of time, and this particular week, it's not a bad thing that we need to be concerned about a whole lot of things in terms of how we're playing."

Does the bye come at a good time for the Lions?

Ideally, coaches and players like to have the bye come right in the middle of the season after Week 8, but given Detroit's injury situation at the moment, this might just work out to be perfect timing.

Detroit suffered a few injuries in New Orleans on Sunday, a couple to key players. Golden Tate (shoulder) and Glover Quin (head) both left the game and didn't return.

"Yeah, no doubt," Caldwell said of the bye-week timing. "There's no question about it, we had quite a few guys get a little banged up during the course of the game, so just like I mentioned yesterday, if we were playing a Thursday game it'd be really tough. If we were playing a Sunday game it might be even fairly tough, so this comes at a great time for us."

The bye also gives left tackle Taylor Decker a couple more weeks to try and get off the PUP list after offseason shoulder surgery in June.

What do the Lions want to accomplish on the bye week?

"Get healthy, that's the number one thing," Caldwell said. "That's going to be the primary focus but then obviously there's some little things that we can work on, and we got a lot of those.

"So, we'll make certain we keep our nose to the grindstone, try to get our team better and in position to win some games."

**Is there a common theme in the slow offensive starts we're seeing from this team?

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In multiple games now this season, Detroit's offense has started the game slow, putting them in come-from-behind scenarios. Sunday's game wasn't just the latest example, but probably the best example of this no-so-good trend.

Detroit made a gallant effort to crawl back from a 45-10 deficit, but they can't continue making it this hard on itself with all the slow starts on offense.

"It's just kind of one of those things," Caldwell said. "We've had a couple, we certainly would like not to have them, but it's the way it is. This particular game we had the one play down there, ended up with a score, we come right back offensively, move the ball down the field, put it in the end zone.

"So, that was one series we started out pretty slow. Next series we did pretty well and then we just kind of went dormant for a little while."

That's two weeks in a row the offense has gone "dormant" for long stretches.

Have the Lions made a decision on the roster status of Decker or defensive tackle Khyri Thornton?

Caldwell said the team hasn't made a decision on either player just yet, at least not ones they're ready to go public with just yet.

Decker is eligible to begin practice at any point. When he starts practicing, the Lions have three weeks to make a decision on whether he'll be activated or remain on PUP.

Thornton was suspended the first six games for violating the league's policy on substances of abuse. He's eligible to return to practice starting Monday.

How does the loss of Aaron Rogers in Green Bay change the landscape of the NFC North?

The Packers'MVP quarterback broke a collarbone in Minnesota over the weekend, which could end his season. Green Bay was the favorite to win the division with Rogers. Without him, it's a whole new race.

"He's a great player but you find that you look across the league and there's a number of teams that have guys starting for them that they're not starter at quarterback position that still play extremely well," Caldwell said.

"That's a good football team all the way around. They're good on defense. They're a good kicking game. They have a really good unit. He's obviously a phenomenal player, but I still think Green Bay is Green Bay."