The Detroit Lions Finally Won on Thanksgiving

After the Detroit Lions won last Thursday on Thanksgiving, it broke their streak of losing seven straight games on Thanksgiving. Obviously, we all know that they are not the best team when it comes to playing on Thanksgiving, with their record being a losing record of 37-45-2 all-time. 

It was a pretty rough game for the Lions in the second quarter. The Lions led the Chicago Bears 16-0 going into halftime and eventually won the game with a close score of 23-20. Their offense looked pretty solid in the first half, moving the ball down the field pretty efficiently, but that eventually changed after halftime. 

We’ve seen that this team doesn’t back down though. They had a rough second quarter, giving up three touchdown passes to Caleb Williams, the first quarterback this season to throw multiple touchdowns against this Detroit defense. But they still came out with the win. 

Throughout this whole game, it was full of injuries on the defensive side of the ball. We are the most injured team in the entire league, even though we are still the best team in the league. This comes from our General Manager Brad Holmes, who has had master class draft performances. He is always finding the pieces we need to fill injured spots or weak points somewhere on the field.

When it comes to statistics, the offense didn’t play horribly. Quarterback Jared Goff threw 34 passes completing 21 of them, with 221 yards and two touchdown passes. Running backs David Montgomery and Jahmyr Gibbs lit up the Bears rushing defense. Monty had 88 yards of 21 attempts, and Gibbs had 87 yards of nine attempts. This running-back tandem is most definitely the best duo in the league, with their nicknames being Sonic and Knuckles. This nickname comes from Gibb’s speed and Montgomery’s strength. Receiving was an overall solid effort with Amon-Ra St Brown having seven targets for five catches and 73 yards. Tim Patrick had three targets and two catches for 48 yards. Sam LaPorta had a whopping six targets, three catches, and six yards for two touchdowns.

From the defensive side of the ball, it wasn’t too bad of an effort, with Brian Branch, the safety, leading the team with five tackles, DJ Reader, the Defensive Tackle, having two sacks, and Defensive End Za’Darius Smith having one, and a half sacks. Al-Quadin Muhammad also got one sack. Even though we had a solid amount of sacks, we put a whole lot of pressure on Chicago’s Quarterback Caleb Williams. Za’Darius Smith had eight pressures, Al-Quadin Muhammad had seven and DJ Reader had 7. 

That pressure statistic is only the second game a team has had three players with seven plus pressure this season. The Lions pressured Williams on 17 dropbacks without blitzing, their most non-blitz pressures in a game under the Dan Campbell era (Since 2021).

With there only being three total games being played on Thanksgiving and everyone being with their families, obviously, they were going to want to watch football. The NFL announced a record average viewership of 34.2 million across its three Thanksgiving last week, with the Dallas Cowboys vs. New York Giants and Green Bay Packers vs. Miami Dolphins following the game in Detroit. The Lions and Bears averaged 37.5 million viewers, a record for the early Thanksgiving Day slot and an 11% bump from last year’s Lions-Packers game.

Matt Eburflus, the Bears coach who eventually got fired after the loss of this game, could’ve had a chance to win the game, but it didn’t happen. With his team trailing by three points, Eberflus failed to use the Bears’ final timeout after Caleb Williams was sacked with 36 seconds left. Williams had to take one shot at the end zone from Detroit’s 41-yard line rather than attempt to set up a game-tying field goal from a more reasonable distance. 

With this win, it gave the Lions fans and players a nice Thanksgiving break after coming out with the win, which doesn’t happen much on Thanksgiving. The Lions are also tied for first place in the entire league with their record and are leading the whole National Football Conference (NFC). 

The Lions, as a whole, have just straight-up dominated every team they have come against. Sometimes, teams get close to beating the best, but in the end, the Lions come out on top. Even though they took a heartbreaking loss to the Tampa Bay Buccaneers in week two, the Lions keep on rolling and are the current front-runner for the Super Bowl. I guess everyone will have to see how they finish their season out.