AP

After giving up 561 yards to the Lions on Thursday, the Packers’ defense knows it needs to get tougher.

Green Bay defensive end Mike Daniels wants to get much tougher.

“We need to choke people, punch them in their throat,” Daniels told the Green Bay Press-Gazette.

Daniels said Lions linebacker DeAndre Levy, who was flagged for a hit on a defenseless receiver, showed the kind of toughness that the Packers need to show.

“I mean, that guy got a helmet-to-helmet on us, you know what, but he was trying to send a message,” Daniels said. “Every now and then, you’ve got to do that. I’m not condoning illegal hits, but we’ve got to punch somebody in their throat for once.”

Well, it’s good that Daniels isn’t condoning illegal hits while he advocates choking opponents and punching them in their throats, but the league office would probably disagree with Daniels that punching somebody in the throat is the right way to play defense.

Still, it’s interesting that just days after Daniels’s teammate, Josh Sitton, complained that the Lions are dirty, Daniels suggested that the Packers need to be more like the Lions.

“They just played a better game than us,” Daniels said. “But, like I said, we need to get more violent. I think we’ve lost some of that violence. Somewhere down the line, we’ve just got to get it done.”

The Packers’ defense does need to get it done, but getting it done with form tackling would probably be better than throat punching.