Detroit Lions regress while Chicago Bears maintain NFC North lead

The Detroit Lions' tough luck on Thanksgiving continued against the Green Bay Packers. With a lot on the line, one team came out on fire while the other team shrank in big moments. The Packers wanted to prove Week 1 was not a fluke, and they are not a team to take lightly. They did exactly that in their win over Detroit.

Jordan Love, even with his shoulder injury, came into this game with all intentions of letting it fire; he was the best quarterback on the field. Love outplayed Jared Goff drastically, something I did not anticipate happening. Love was 18-30 and threw for 234 yards and 4 passing touchdowns. Jordan Love usually is at his best around this time, and he made throw after throw. Special quarterback performance by Love.

Josh Jacobs also returned in this game, and he complemented Love's performance with 83 yards on the ground. Love had his playmakers step up to the plate and burn the Lions' suspect secondary all game long. Dontayvion Wicks and Christian Watson both had at least 80 yards receiving and a touchdown each. The Packers also won this game with their offense, unlike their Week 1 victory. Micah Parsons did still leave his impact on the game with 2.5 sacks on the day and wreaked havoc in the backfield. These are the games you want to reap the benefits of making the big splash trade for Parsons. That did indeed happen in this one. Both of his sacks, in fact, came in the fourth quarter, the most pivotal points of the game.

For Detroit, this season feels as unlucky as their games on Thanksgiving have been. If it were not for Matt Eberflus' collapse last season, the Lions would have lost 8 straight games on Thanksgiving. The Lions have been rattled with Injuries all season, and one more pivotal injury struck them as one of their best offensive players, Amon-Ra St. Brown, went down with an ankle injury. You couple that with already having tight end Sam Laporta out for the season, and most likely the odds are greatly stacked against the Lions. Thankfully, the Lions have Jameson Williams still, and he was able to put up 144 yards receiving on the day. Unfortunately, that great effort was not enough.

Now going down 0-2 to the Packers are now sitting at 5 losses on the season. Any hope for winning the NFC North division has seemed to vanish. Concern about the Lions making the playoffs is growing rapidly. St. Brown will not be placed on IR due to his ankle injury, and Frank Ragnow is returning from retirement; both seem like extremely great news. Hard to enjoy that news with the Rams and Cowboys up on the schedule in the next two games. If the Lions want to keep their playoff hopes alive, they will have to more than likely win both games.

What a turnaround it has been. The Lions were 15-2 last season and seemed like owners of the NFC North for at least the near future, but now this season, they will be lucky to even make the playoffs as a final wild card team. To make matters worse, they will have to watch their former offensive coordinator led his new team and their NFC North rival potential steal the North this season.

Losing Ben Johnson looks to have been a detrimental loss for Detroit. It may even be time to question if the Lions' Super Bowl window is closing soon. To the surprise of many, the NFC North is looking to be decided between the Bears and the Packers in the coming weeks.

This article originally appeared on Trojans Wire: Green Bay Packers add to Detroit Lions' disappointing year