DETROIT – The Detroit Lions had no answers for Josh Allen.

Now they’re hoping a broken defense can stop everyone else.

Detroit’s patchwork defense grew even weaker in Sunday’s 48-42 loss to Allen and the Buffalo Bills, losing three contributors to possible season-ending injuries.

Defensive tackle Alim McNeill injured his knee, cornerback Carlton Davis III left with a jaw injury, and reserve cornerback and key special teams player Khalil Dorsey broke his right leg, which coach Dan Campbell said was similar to the season-ending injury to Aidan Hutchinson resembled.

“We’ll know more about Alim and (Davis) tomorrow, but I don’t feel comfortable with either of those guys,” Campbell said. “If I say I don’t feel well because of an injury, it means I won’t feel well for the rest of the season.”

The Lions have more players on injured reserve than anyone else in the NFL, and a high percentage of those players play defense. They’ve managed to overcome the loss of Hutchinson – the league’s best pass rusher – but Allen has shown how far they’ve come.

Not only did they not register a sack, they rarely put any pressure on it. They had just three quarterback hits on a day in which he rushed for a season-high 362 yards and two touchdowns and rushed for 68 yards and two more scores.

“He’s a big problem for any team and we knew that was going to happen,” Campbell said. “We wanted to deal with him better, but we just didn’t. If he makes a play I can live with it, but what’s frustrating are all the self-inflicted wounds.

“You can’t give anything to this team and I feel like we helped them a little bit.”

Buffalo’s 48 points and 559 yards don’t even tell the whole story, as Tyler Bass missed a 24-yard field goal that could have given the Bills more than 50 points. The performance came after Buffalo lost 44-42 to the Los Angeles Rams last Sunday.

“We knew they would be ready to move on after that tough loss out there on the West Coast,” Campbell said. “They had this urgency and we just couldn’t meet it.” That’s on me. I didn’t have these guys ready to get involved in a game like that. We have a lot of guys who can play better and that’s my job.”

The final box score doesn’t look bad for the Lions’ offense after they had 521 yards, including 494 yards from Jared Goff, and only gave up six points.

Goff threw for 333 yards in the second half, but Detroit added just seven on the ground. Detroit trailed 38-21 early in the fourth quarter and still trailed by two points until it scored its final touchdown with 16 seconds left.

“If we could have played like that at the beginning of the game, we might have been closer in the first three quarters,” Goff said. “It probably wouldn’t have felt quite so rubbish there in the end.

“They hit us in the mouth early and it took us too long to react.”

However, Goff believes the game could have value in the long run.

“We would have loved to win, including the Super Bowl, but that didn’t happen,” he said. “I hope we can take this as a good lesson and use what we have learned to win the next three games.”