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Two of the hottest teams in the NFL will face off Thursday night in Detroit as the Lions take on NFC North rival Green Bay Packers at home. The Lions (11-1) are sitting pretty atop the division, but the Packers (9-3) are battling tough for a playoff spot.
Who will come out on top at Ford Field?
Stay with NBC News all night for live coverage from the pivotal matchup.
The Packers leaned on their running game to score their first points, rushing the ball 10 times on a 12-play drive — including Josh Jacobs’ 1-yard touchdown dive. Detroit now leads, 10-7, with 5:35 to go before halftime.
Green Bay running back Josh Jacobs surpassed 1,000 rushing yards for the season in the second quarter. He’d entered the night needing only 13 yards to reach the milestone for the fourth time in his six-year career. Jacobs rushed for a career-high and league-leading 1,653 yards in 2022 with Las Vegas, only to gain half that last season with the Raiders.
Now in his first year in Green Bay, Jacobs has helped his new team rank fifth in the NFL by averaging 148.5 yards per game. One of the four teams to average more? Detroit.
After Green Bay’s turnover gave Detroit the ball back near midfield, the Lions used a 10-yard pass and a 15-yard penalty for unnecessary roughness to move the ball into field-goal position. Jake Bates then knocked in a 43-yard field goal. With 13 minutes to play before halftime, the Lions lead, 10-0.
Detroit’s offense was going nowhere. Then its defense gave it another opportunity. Packers receiver Christian Watson didn’t see Lions cornerback Carlton Davis III coming from behind and punch out the ball, causing a fumble Detroit pounced on. They get the ball back less than a minute into the second quarter.
As we outlined earlier, the NFC North has been the toughest division in the league this season and both teams know they still have a path to a high seed in the postseason, and potentially the top seed. It explains the intensity captured before kickoff.
The Packers haven’t allowed a sack on quarterback Jordan Love in three of their last five games, but Detroit has already sacked Love once tonight, roughing him up as he hit the turf. Both offenses have stalled since Detroit’s opening touchdown.
The Packers’ offense gains just five yards on five plays before punting on its opening drive. It only earned a first down because of a penalty.
Detroit scores on its first drive, going 70 yards in 11 plays in over five minutes. Aided by penalties that gave it more red-zone opportunities near the goal line, David Montgomery runs in for a short touchdown and a 7-0 Lions lead.
The Lions will receive first. Even though it leads the league in points per game (31.9), Detroit ranks just 17th in points scored per first quarter.
NFL teams closely guard aspects of their playbook like nuclear codes. It’s why stories of teams spying on one another have turned into scandals, and why coaches are often seen on sidelines covering their mouth with a laminated playsheet as they call a play. This week fans on social media received a rare view into a team’s preparation for an opponent when Lions running back Jahmyr Gibbs accidentally posted an image to social media showing his team’s code words outlining their pass protections against Green Bay.
Coaches from both teams have downplayed the edge it may provide.
“I’m sure our guys aren’t going to sit there and study every code word they have in their offense,” Packers coach Matt LeFleur said. “I mean, you can get this stuff from the TV copies. I mean, there are certain things you can pick up off the TV copies. That’s why most teams, I would say probably every team in the league, listen to what they’re putting out there as well as what the opponent is putting out there and you try to piece it together. Personally, I think it’s probably a little bit overrated.”
Jordan Love is one of the most promising young quarterbacks in the NFL, but this season he has been plagued by interceptions, with as many through 10 games (11) as he threw all of last year in 17 games. And yet, in his last two games for Green Bay, Love has combined for four touchdowns and zero picks.
Love is coming off his best statistical game of the season, a Week 13 win against Miami in which he posted a season-high quarterback rating while being sacked zero times.
Detroit starting offensive lineman Taylor Decker has officially been ruled out and will not play against Green Bay. It’s the second consecutive week Decker has missed with a knee injury.
Three other Lions who were hurt within the past week also won’t play tonight, according to the team: defensive linemen Levi Onwuzurike (hamstring) and D.J. Reader and defensive end Joshua Paschal (knee).
The silver lining for a banged-up Lions team is that cornerback Carlton Davis III, who had been dealing with knee and thumb injuries, will be available.
The Packers aren’t at full-strength, either. The team has ruled out cornerbacks Corey Ballentine and Jaire Alexander, receiver Romeo Doubs and linebacker Edgerrin Cooper.
At 10-2 and having outscored its opponents by a league-high 180 points, Detroit has been one of the NFL’s best teams. And also one of its most injured.
Every NFL team has appeared in a Super Bowl — except Detroit. Their injuries haven’t derailed the Super Bowl as a possibility, but have made it more challenging. This week began with one starter on the offensive line and three on the defensive line not taking part in practice Monday. They are just the latest names to be added to the team’s injury report, which includes one of the league’s top defensive ends, Aidan Hutchinson.
Their defense has been decimated:
The former No. 1 overall pick in 2016, Jared Goff had a charmed start to his career with the Rams, appearing in a Super Bowl within three seasons. But since the Rams lost confidence in Goff in 2021 and traded him to Detroit in exchange for Matthew Stafford, Goff has shown again why he entered the NFL as such a top prospect.
Oddsmakers at Covers have given Goff the fifth-best odds to win the NFL’s most valuable player award this season after he has posted a passer rating of 109.0, which is the highest of his career and well above his career average of 94.7.
Goff enters tonight with 22 touchdowns, 10 fewer than his career-high with five games to play, and 9 interceptions. Goff is also averaging what would be career-bests in average yards per attempt (8.8) and net yards per attempt (7.7), which factors in sacks.
With 11 interceptions and 12 fumble recoveries, Green Bay’s defense has the fifth-most takeaways this season, two behind NFL-leading Pittsburgh.
Detroit’s 14 interceptions rank third-most, and they’ve added five fumble recoveries, for 19 total takeaways. It’s a reason why Lions defensive coordinator Aaron Glenn is often referred to as one of the top head-coaching candidates. And yet both teams have a turnover margin in only the single digits because their offenses have been prone to turnovers themselves. Jared Goff and Jordan Love are two of the NFL’s most talented quarterbacks but will be tested tonight.
Only one division in the NFL standings boasts three teams with winning records this season: the NFC North. The division has been so strong that it has produced three of the seven teams with nine wins or more — Detroit, Minnesota and Green Bay.
Staying atop the conference is incredibly important, as the top team from both the AFC and NFC earn a bye in the playoffs’ first round. Tonight’s matchup between Detroit and Green Bay will help decide playoff seeding, and Detroit could clinch a playoff berth outright with a victory.
Detroit has already beaten Green Bay once this season. The Packers aren’t mathematically eliminated from earning a No. 1 seed in the NFC, but it’s a difficult path to turn into reality. One hurdle is that the Packers have already lost to Philadelphia, which itself is vying for the conference’s top seed.
How things stand in the NFC North entering Thursday’s matchup:
Detroit: 11-1
Minnesota: 10-2
Green Bay: 9-3
Chicago: 4-8
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