The Super Bowl-caliber Detroit Lions team
The first-ever Thanksgiving football game was played by the Detroit Lions in 1934. The Chicago Bears defeated them.
The Lions will play the Bears again on Thanksgiving, almost a century later.
However, Detroit is one of the favorites to make it to the Super Bowl this season.
For almost a dozen years, Justin Rogers, the founder of Detroit Football Network, has covered the Lions.
Detroit Football Network’s Justin Rogers: Under head coach Dan Campbell, the Lions club has a tendency to break bad streaks; they have broken a number of them, so it seems likely that they will break another one this holiday.
WDET News’ Quinn Klinefelter: They had a rather injured lineup going into this match, particularly on defense. There are just four days in between games this week, making it a short week. What effect do you believe that will have on the Turkey Day competition?
JR: Whenever they have an injury, you have to question whether this squad will eventually be overtaken by attrition. Naturally, standout pass rusher Aidan Hutchinson is at the top of the list of the numerous high-profile players they have lost this season. Surprisingly, though, they simply keep getting better. Despite losing so many players, they are now second in the NFL in terms of points allowed. Aaron Glenn, the defensive coordinator, will thus have to solve yet another riddle. Regarding his work this year, however, I am at a loss for words. He has effectively established himself as a head coach. Even though he was on medication, he needed the results to make his résumé stand out. It makes sense for a team to give him a chance if he recovers from these injuries.
QK: The quarterback facing the Lions defense has had a rather mixed season so far, which is to be expected for a rookie, especially one as high as Caleb Williams, who was selected first overall. However, since the Bears hired a new offensive coordinator for him, he appears to have been playing pretty well lately. In this specific game against the lions, do you believe he can take another step?
JR: You know, that’s the problem with rookies. It all comes down to determining consistency and degree. The fact that Williams hasn’t thrown at interception in the last five games is encouraging. Young quarterbacks frequently struggle with turnovers. He is surrounded by a number of weapons. He appears to be adjusting well to his new offensive coordinator, and they have placed him in a strong position for success as a rookie. They have only played two games together. The sample size is really tiny. Determining the precise meaning of that is difficult. However, we witnessed what transpired when Detroit had QK: Detroit’s offense has occasionally raced up enormous scores and seems nearly unstoppable. However, they are up against a Bears defense that currently appears to have one of the league’s top, if not the greatest, secondaries. For quarterback Jared Goff and his different receivers, that may make things a little difficult. What do you think will happen with that
JR: I believe the matchup will determine the outcome of this game. After three excellent years under offensive coordinator Ben Johnson, Detroit’s attack is currently perhaps the finest in the team’s history. In addition to scoring more than 30 points a game on average, they have scored at least 40 points four times this season and 50 points twice. They have extraordinary versatility and tremendous power. They can do anything, which is the brilliance of their offensive. They may either play the finesse game or run the smash mouth game and pound it on the ground. When you’re game planning for this Detroit offense, you never know what you’re going to get because they have players that are incredibly good at speed and space. Detroit will have a response, even though Chicago’s defense has been excellent, has a lot of continuity, and is producing a lot of quality at all levels. The only question is whether they can carry it out. Everything Detroit came up with worked well, as we witnessed in Jacksonville two weeks ago. We saw that they were a little more clumsy last week in Indianapolis, with both excellent and awful drives. However, they still end up with 24 points. It should be sufficient to defeat a Chicago offense that isn’t performing up to pace this season if you can score in the upper 20 points, in my opinion.
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