5 takeaways from the Detroit Lions’ Thanksgiving victory over Chicago Bears

5 takeaways from the Detroit Lions’ squeaking out a victory over the Chicago Bears on Thanksgiving.

I am thankful for Matt Eberflus.

The Detroit Lions would not have defeated the Chicago Bears on Thanksgiving without a historic blunder from the Bears head coach. After a dominant but low-scoring first half for Detroit, Chicago clawed their way back and were on the doorstep with a chance to tie or win. Instead, thanks to horrific time management from Eberflus, the Lions walked away victorious.

Detroit may have walked away with a Thanksgiving win to snap their holiday losing streak, but it was far from a pretty outing. The offense had one of their quietest performances of the year, while the defense keeps losing players.

That and more in this week’s takeaways.

Please, stop with the injuries

“How battered and bruised can one football team get?” I wrote this in last week’s takeaways, and I feel like I have written this in nearly every takeaway article this season. The fact remains that the Lions are getting devastated by the injury bug. Already missing a bevy of front seven players (plus Carlton Davis and Taylor Decker), the Lions’ depth was torpedoed even further on Thanksgiving. Both Levi Onwuzurike and Josh Paschal were ruled out after sustaining leg injuries in the first half. One of their replacements, rookie Mekhi Wingo, briefly left the second half with a knee injury. Malcolm Rodriguez suffered a knee injury halfway through the fourth quarter and did not return. DJ Reader and Za’Darius Smith were both banged up in the fourth quarter but returned shortly after, with Smith leaving on two separate occasions.

Detroit has already been scraping the bottom of their depth, but losing three staples of their defense (over 1100 snaps between Onwuzurike, Paschal, and Rodriguez) is yet another blow they will have to weather down the stretch. Players like Al-Quaddin Muhammad and Pat O’Connor—two players that were not with the team entering training camp—will be leaned upon to maintain a stalwart defensive line. Trevor Nowaske, Ben Niemann, David Long, or Ezekiel Turner might have to fill the potential void at linebacker on a team already missing Alex Anzalone and Jalen Reeves-Maybin.

Interior maulers

For as crippled as the edge defenders have been, the interior has been stout thanks to Alim McNeill and DJ Reader. Reader had an injury scare, but was otherwise dominant. He recorded two sacks, while tag teaming with McNeill on countless pressures. Caleb Williams was sacked five times on the day thanks largely to the interior pressure from McNeill and Reader.

There is no question that the Lions would not be in their current position without these two defensive tackles.

Missed opportunities

The Lions have defeated many teams this year by forcing them to settle for field goals instead of touchdowns. On Thursday, it was the Lions on the wrong side of that trend. Despite a dominant first half, Detroit was forced to settle for three short field goals after stalling in enemy territory. The score was just 16-0 at halftime despite Chicago failing to get a first down until the dying seconds of the second quarter. They mustered just a single second-half touchdown the rest of the way.

The offense was not at its best for the second week in a row after a modest (by their standards) 24 points against the Indianapolis Colts. The wasted chances did not cost the Lions a loss (barely), but there’s still room for concern. They’ll need to get it cleaned up if they want to keep rolling against tougher opponents. Next up? The Green Bay Packers and Buffalo Bills. The Lions will need their offense humming like usual.

Ups and downs for Jamo

Jameson Williams has entrenched himself as an important part of the offense, but this can be a positive and negative. In the positive, Williams did some damage on short passes, contrary to his usual deep-threat ways. He had a beautiful hurdle on an end-around as well, fully clearing a Bears defender.

On the negative, he nearly had a fumble that was ruled incomplete by a split second. He later incurred a dumb taunting penalty for throwing the ball into the face of a Bears defender after a catch. This pushed Detroit into second-and-22 that eventually turned into a missed field goal.

Williams is an electric player, you have to live with the roller coaster that he will give you.

Another Jim Nantz Thanksgiving jinx

Jake Bates missed his first field of the season on a 45-yard attempt thanks to Jim Nantz and his witchcraft. Nantz was praising the then-perfect kicker moments before the field goal attempt. He had a similar moment back in 2022 when Michael Badgley missed a short 27-yard field goal to end his perfect streak—that game also happened on Thanksgiving:

Someone needs to duct tape Nantz’s mouth shut whenever the Lions are kicking.