After last week’s win over the Chargers, I figured anything was possible against the Lions on Thanksgiving Day. I mean this is the Lions team that has never come close to a Super Bowl, last winning a championship in 1957, and since then the Lions have been to the playoffs just 12 times with a 1-12 record and currently on a nine-game playoff losing streak. That compares to a Packer team that in the past 30 years has made the playoffs 23 times, including three Super Bowl appearances. Were these Lions playing at home for real, or were some of people getting all starry-eyed about Jordan Love’s stat line the last couple of weeks for good reason?
I listened to the first of half of the game on the radio, and watched the second half on television. What I heard was on the first play, Jordan Love hit Christian Watson for a 53-yard deep pass, and couple plays later Jayden Reed caught a TD pass for a 7-0 lead. On the highlight reel, what I saw was that Love again underthrew a pass that was thrown deep downfield, but this time there was just enough space between two defenders for Watson to slow down and adjust and complete the play; if the ball had been thrown two more yards further Watson would have walked it in for a 75-yard TD.
Jared Goff and the Lions quickly responded with their own touchdown, but Love was operating under virtually no pressure from the Lions’ defensive front the entire game, and found TE Tucker Kraft in the end zone after another quick trip down the field for a 14-6 lead. Love at that point was 8 of 9 for 124 yards and 2 TDs. Would Goff and Lions answer back? No, Goff would lose the first of his three fumbles of the game, with Jonathan Owens picking up the ball and running it in for a touchdown. Suddenly the Packers, who had trouble scoring 20 points over an entire game, suddenly found themselves with a 20-6 lead in only the first quarter after Anders Carlson missed his third extra point for the season.
Goff fumbled on the Lions next series, but the Packers failed to convert on a fourth down play at the Lions’ 14-yard line. That was the only time in this game that Matt LaFleur would make that mistake, but Lions’ coach Dan Campbell was a gambler, and he would make one bad gamble after another in this game that would all add-up to be disastrous for his team’s chances to win even with Goff’s fumbles. The Packers added a field goal, and then Campbell would pass on the opportunity the first of three times for 3-points on a failed fourth-down play, and the Packers went into the half with a 23-6 lead, with Love having his best half of the year, completing 15 of 20 for 189 yards.
That’s what I heard; what I saw in the second half was considerably less impressive. The Packers would only score again after what everyone who saw it called an impossible to understand and clearly ill-advised fake punt on the Lions’ 22-yard line, after which a TD pass to Watson on third down was possible only because Love actually threw the ball over the defender where Watson could use his height advantage to catch the ball, something which Love had trouble helping him do for most of the season.
The Lions piled-up over 300 yards of offense in the second half, even as the Packers defensive line was all over Goff for most of the game, with 3 sacks, 12 QB hits and those three lost fumbles. Twice in the second half Campbell passed on easy field goals and failed to convert on fourth down. As it was, after a late TD following a quick 91-yard drive, a failed onside kick clinched the win for the Packers; but the reality was that the Lions complete domination of the Packers in the second half could have been much worse, being bookended by TDs and two-point conversion on their first and last possessions of the second half.
Love completed just 7 of 12 for 79 yards in the second half, but the Lions made just enough mistakes—the biggest that ill-advised fake punt attempt that led to the short-field touchdown that turned out to be the only reason why the Packers were able to pull out a “shock” 29-22 win on the road against an 8-2 opponent. Goff completed 29 of 44 passes for 332 yards and 2 TDs, and Lions out-rushed the Packers 140-109 for the game, but the Packer defense deserved credit for making opportunistic plays to abort further damage and allow the Packers to win this game. 12 of the Packer points were the result of the Lions’ offense simply handing the ball to the Packer defense.
The Packers return home to face a Chiefs team that increasingly appears “mortal,” and the rest of the schedule looks as “easy” as what came before it was. The Packers at 5-6 have a chance at not only a winning season but the playoffs, but that depends more on extraordinary good fortune smiling down on the Packers more than Love’s seemingly improving numbers.
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