Behind Enemy Lines: Previewing Packers vs. Lions on Thanksgiving Day

By kickoff on Thursday at Ford Field, 81 days will have passed since the Green Bay Packers beat the Detroit Lions at Lambeau Field to open the 2025 season. That's an eternity on the pro football calendar. It's now Week 13, and both teams have changed considerably over the resulting 12 weeks.

The Lions are now 7-4, right in the hunt in the NFC North and clawing alongside the Packers for playoff positioning -- making the Thanksgiving Day showdown at Ford Field all the more important. Can the Packers rise to the challenge, sweep the Lions for the first time since 2020 and take a huge step towards becoming the eventual division champion?

To help preview Packers-Lions and get to know the Lions before Thanksgiving Day, we asked some questions of Jeff Risdon, the long-time managing editor of Lions Wire. Here's our Q&A:

1. What has changed for the Lions since Week 1?

Lions Wire: Biggest change is that Dan Campbell has taken over offensive playcalling duties from OC John Morton. The change hasn’t been seamless, to say the least, but the greater good has been done. The heavier usage of Jahmyr Gibbs and more of a reliance on duo blocking has paid off. The defense has proven itself (outside of Week 12) fully capable of winning games on its own. Jack Campbell has emerged as an All-Pro level off-ball LB, something he only hinted at in Week 1, his worst game of the season.

2. Short week, so what does the injury situation look like for the Lions?

Lions Wire: Kerby Joseph is out and the Lions sorely miss the All-Pro safety’s ball skills. Pro Bowl TE Sam LaPorta is out for the season and his replacement, Brock Wright, hasn’t practiced yet this week. Four of the five offensive line starters will likely be listed as questionable, though that’s been the case for weeks now.

Detroit is getting CB Terrion Arnold back after missing a couple of weeks. Recent returns by CB DJ Reed as starting CB and LB Malcolm Rodriguez as a huge special teams asset have been quite welcome. Reed, Arnold and safety Brian Branch give the Lions three projected starters in the secondary for the first time since September.

3. The Lions needed a comeback to avoid a 1-3 stretch since the bye. What's going on over the last month?

Lions Wire: The offensive line is the biggest culprit. To be blunt, they’ve not replaced All-Pro center Frank Ragnow capably, and it has negatively impacted the entire passing game. Teams are getting pressure on Jared Goff up the gut, and that throws off his middle-of-field mastery. That the Lions have faced pretty good defensive fronts in that stretch is not unrelated. Special teams have fallen off as well, though that rebounded nicely vs. the Giants.

There are still issues with playcalling. Packers fans probably watched the Lions botch repeated fourth-down decisions and execution against the Eagles, which directly cost them a game in which Detroit’s defense completely dominated.

4. Aidan Hutchinson is having another great year, but who is the Lions second-best pass rusher right now?

Lions Wire: Good question. I think Lions DC Kelvin Sheppard would probably like to know that answer. Al-Quadin Muhammad has been invisible for a month after starting out as a pressure machine. Alim McNeill gets after it inside, but he’s been playing more DE as the team tries to find something. DT Roy Lopez has emerged as a very pleasant veteran surprise of late; his last two weeks have been impactful and he could see more action.

5. The Lions win if...? The Packers win if...?

Lions Wire: The Lions win if they can block, and if Goff gets a connection going with someone other than Amon-Ra St. Brown. Even sans LaPorta, the offense has way too many weapons for any defense to handle--but it has to protect the immobile Goff. When they did that against Baltimore, Chicago and Cleveland, the games really weren’t competitive. Forcing a takeaway or two would certainly help.

The Packers win if they can disrupt Goff, but also tackle well. Be it Gibbs, St. Brown, David Montgomery, even Jameson Williams and little-used Isaac TeSlaa, the Lions are fantastic at making tacklers miss and picking up extra yards, often creating explosive plays off defensive errors. Green Bay will also have to not be afraid to ride a hot hand offensively, in the way the Giants spammed Wan'Dale Robinson all over Detroit last week. Balanced offense is a bad idea, as counterintuitive as that might seem. If the Packers find something that works, beat it to death--the psychological impact of that definitely hits the Lions defense harder than mixing it up and letting them off the hook. Will Matt LaFleur grasp that?

6. Score prediction?

Lions Wire: I see a defensive slugfest punctuated by a handful of big plays. The Lions with Gibbs and Jamo are more capable of producing those, but the Packers can match if Jordan Love is protected and aggressive. As long as the Lions projected starting 5 offensive line plays, Detroit wins 20-17. If Penei Sewell, Taylor Decker or both are out, the Packers will win and could hold the Lions to single digits.

This article originally appeared on Packers Wire: Packers vs. Lions preview: Going behind enemy lines with Lions Wire