Three Reasons Why Lions Will Beat Stuffing Out of Packers

GREEN BAY, Wis. – The Green Bay Packers will face their biggest challenge of the season on Thanksgiving against the Detroit Lions.

The Lions are a premier team, with quarterback Jared Goff, a star-studded offense and game-wrecking Aidan Hutchinson. As if that’s not enough, it’s a short week, they’ll be at home and they will be the desperate team given their place in the playoff race.

With the table set, here are three reasons why the Lions will beat the Packers

Jahmyr Gibbs

Lions running back Jahmyr Gibbs is one of the most explosive playmakers in the NFL history. Not just this season but of all-time.

Among all running backs with at least 575 career carries, Gibbs ranks No. 1 all-time with 5.64 yards per carry. This season, Gibbs is 16th in carries but third in rushing because of his league-high 6.14 yards per carry. Among running backs with 150-plus carries in a season in NFL history, that’s the third-best behind the 6.4-yard averages of Hall of Famer Jim Brown and former Chiefs star Jamaal Charles.

As Gibbs goes, so goes the Lions. In 43 career games, he’s averaging 6.03 yards per carry with 33 rushing touchdowns in 32 wins and 4.15 yards per carry with three rushing touchdowns in 11 losses.

Packers defensive coordinator Jeff Hafley probably doesn’t need all those numbers to know the challenge that awaits.

“This is a game where you have to be really fundamentally sound against him and you better be where you’re supposed to be and you better run to the ball because this guy, as you saw last week in overtime and in earlier periods of that game, this guy can go 80 like that,” Hafley said.

Against the Giants on Sunday, Gibbs carried 15 times for 219 yards, with a 49-yard touchdown in the fourth quarter and a 69-yard touchdown in overtime. Sure, the big runs skewed the numbers, but he averaged 7.8 yards per carry on the other 13 carries.

“You can’t be out of your gap. You can’t run up the field,” he said. “If you’re supposed to be a three-technique and have the B gap, you better be a three-technique and have the B gap.”

Green Bay has played good run defense for most of the season. It ranks sixth with 96.5 rushing yards allowed per game and seventh with 3.89 yards allowed per carry. While the Vikings had some success last week, the Packers stopped the Lions in Week 1 – Gibbs carried nine times for 19 yards – and the Eagles a few weeks ago. Those games were at Lambeau Field, though, and Gibbs is a different animal on the fast track of Ford Field. (More on that later.)

“I think he’s really good and it’ll be a challenge, and it’s one we’ll be ready for,” Hafley said.

Fourth Downs

Teams that have had success against Green Bay’s defense have done it a little at a time, and that’s taken some of the teeth out of the Packers’ biggest strength.

Not long ago, an offense facing third-and-6 or third-and-8 would have to pass, and a defense with a strong pass rush could tee off. Not anymore. Now, that offense facing third-and-medium might run the ball or throw an easy pass into the flat in hopes of getting to fourth-and-short.

The Lions under coach Dan Campbell have been at the leading edge of that philosophical change. Detroit has gone for it 23 times on fourth down this season, fifth-most in the league. The Giants, who pushed the Packers to the brink two weeks ago, are first with 28. The Panthers, who upset the Packers at Lambeau Field a few weeks ago, are second with 27.

Detroit Lions wide receiver Jameson Williams (1) celebrates a touchdown against Philadelphia with coach Dan Campbell. | Junfu Han / USA TODAY NETWORK via Imagn Images

The Panthers and Giants showed the formula to use against Green Bay, and it’s a formula that’s natural for Detroit to follow. Why have to deal with Micah Parsons’ storming around the corner on third down if you can run it in hopes of getting to fourth-and-short?

“Yeah, it makes you think,” Hafley said of how that challenges his play-calling. “I think we’ve been prepared for that now all year. We faced a very, very high amount of fourth downs. People have been trying to get us in fourth-and-short and go for it all over the field.”

He’s right. The Packers have faced the fifth-most plays on fourth down.

“It’s become a big trend in football right now,” he continued. “Because if you really think about it, if we get a touchback and we start on the 35, they’re 15 yards away from getting to midfield, right? So, at that point, with the ball on the 50-yard line maybe only after getting one first down, we gave up 59-yard field goal last week and a 53-yard field goal last week and we gave up six points. It’s starting to become easy to kick a 60-yard field goal.

“So now you’ve got to say OK, I’m at the 50. Am I in four-down territory? So, we’ve got to kind of call the game accordingly. So third-and-7 really becomes second-and-7 because they know they’re going to go for it on fourth down.”

There’s obviously considerable risk in going for it on fourth down. Just as Hafley talked about giving up long field goals, a fourth-down stop can set up a field goal (at least). When the Packers upset the Lions 29-22 in Detroit in 2023, the Lions went 1-for-5 on fourth down.

“Everybody wants to see us blitz on that down, but there’s a good chance we also have to defend the run,” Hafley said. “Coach Campbell has done that throughout his time, and I’m sure he’ll continue to do that.”

He’ll probably be incentivized to do so on Thursday to limit the impact of Parsons and create scoring opportunities. With the Lions having game-changing receivers, a game-changing running back and an accurate and experienced quarterback, good defense might not be good enough to avoid suffering a loss incurred by a thousand paper cuts.

Ford Field

The Lions are a different beast at home. They are 4-1 at home and 3-3 on the road this season.

The home-road splits for running back Jahmyr Gibbs are absurd. At Ford Field in his career, his career average is 6.28 yards per carry and 5.07 yards per carry on the road.

Receiver Amon-Ra St. Brown in five career games at Lambeau Field has never had more than 56 yards. In four games against the Packers at Ford Field, he has games of eight catches for 109 yards in 2021 and nine catches for 95 yards in 2023.

With the Lions, Jared Goff has faced the Packers nine times. In five games at Lambeau, he has five touchdowns, three interceptions and one game with a 100 passer rating. In four games at Ford Field, he has nine touchdowns, two interceptions and three games with a 100 rating.

Offensively, Detroit excels on the Ford Field speed. Defensively, it thrives on noise. Aidan Hutchinson is a premier player whatever the venue but has 21.5 sacks in 25 home games and 15.5 sacks in 25 road games.

“The Lions do a good job of getting off on the snap count. Hutchinson is as quick as anybody,” coach Matt LaFleur said.

At center, Sean Rhyan will be making his third career start at the position. His only road game was against the Giants, an open-air stadium with a lot of Packers fans in attendance. At right guard, rookie Anthony Belton might be making his first start at the position.

Dealing with deafening noise is a challenge for even a veteran offense. The Packers will be young at the interior positions, with those blockers having to protect a quarterback with an injured shoulder.

“We know this is going to be a hostile environment,” LaFleur said. “Their fans do a great job of getting into the action, and they truly have a homefield advantage, no doubt about it. And I think when you talk about the outcome of the game, being able to handle the crowd noise on the road is going to be a critical aspect to that.”

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Jahmyr Gibbs

Fourth Downs

Ford Field

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