Sportsnaut
The NFL Thanksgiving Day slate kicked off at Ford Field with an NFC North duel between the Green Bay Packers and Detroit Lions. Fittingly for a high-stakes matchup between rivals with playoff implications, it was a great back-and-forth battle.
Let’s dive into the winners and losers from the Thanksgiving Day matchup between the Packers and Lions, with Green Bay sweeping Detroit to move to 8-3-1 and increasing its playoff odds to 93 percent.
With Matthew Golden inactive on Thursday and Jayden Reed still not activated off injured reserve, someone in this Packers receiving corps needed to step up. For the first time all season, it was Dontayvion Wicks. He entered Week 13 with 118 receiving yards in his last six games, and he hadn’t found the end zone since Week 16 of last season. Against the Lions, he made a fantastic fourth-down touchdown grab, and he finished with a season-high in receiving yards. It also marked the third multi-touchdown game of his young career.
If all of that wasn’t enough, Wicks made the game-winning catch with a defender on his back to sink the dagger into Detroit. With Reed and Golden likely returning to action in Week 14, Wicks needed this performance just to stay in the mix moving forward, and the Packers offense might have needed him even more on Thursday.
We’re willing to say the multoiple replay angles on the Dontayvion Wicks touchdown are enough to justify the call being overturned. However, there’s zero excuse for the crew gifting the timeout to Matt LaFleur and, effectively, a touchdown to the Packers’ offense. As loud as that raucous crowd at Ford Field was, there was simply no way the officials could’ve heard LaFleur call the timeout right before the false start by Anthony Belton. So, all you have is LaFleur signaling it after the movement. It should’ve been a five-yard penalty to force a 4th-and-6 at the 7-yard line and Green Bay likely takes the point. There’s no excuse for LaFleur being given that timeout.
Related: Controversial Packers’ Touchdown vs Detroit Lions
After the Amon-Ra St. Brown injury (ankle), there had to be real concern about how this Lions offense would perform without its All-Pro wide receiver and tight end Sam LaPorta against a top defense. Jameson Williams came through, demonstrating why the Lions coaching staff keeps emphasizing the need to keep him involved. He easily led Detroit in receiving on Thursday, delivering his third game this season with 100-plus yards and a touchdown. Now, Williams did have that costly fourth-down drop, but the throw was a bit behind him and his performance outside of that one play is why the Lions stayed in the game.
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The Packers defense just seems...
