Eric Woodyard, ESPN
DETROIT — Thanksgiving Day in Dan Campbell’s household wasn’t the greatest experience the past few years.
After suffering three straight Thanksgiving losses as coach of the Detroit Lions, Campbell described himself as a “bear” to be around and said his wife, Holly, was praying for a victory over the Chicago Bears on Thursday.
“It’d be nice to feel good about it when you’re with everybody because it’s just not real fun. It’s not real fun to be around,” Campbell said beforehand. “Ask my wife, she’ll tell you.”
Campbell and the Lions delivered Thursday, halting a seven-game losing streak in the annual holiday game by narrowly topping the Bears, 23-20.
At 11-1, the Lions are off to their best start in franchise history.
Prior to Thursday, the Lions hadn’t won on Thanksgiving since 2016. Although it came down to the wire, Campbell said he’ll “take this W and I’m not going to lose sleep over it.”
He described his mood as being “good” before heading home to his family.
“Listen, much better. Much better. I’ll take a W. Look, that’s division win No. 3, which is huge, especially in the race we’re in right now and that’s win 11 and it’s another conference win,” Campbell said. “So, I feel good. I’m going to take that W and I’m going to enjoy this Thanksgiving. Happy Thanksgiving to all of you, and all your families and everybody out there. I’m gonna enjoy this.”
Like Campbell, veteran quarterback Jared Goff had never experienced a Thanksgiving victory in Detroit. After leading the Lions to their 10th straight win, Goff enjoyed the traditional turkey leg as the 2024 Madden Thanksgiving MVP, alongside teammates David Montgomery, Jahmyr Gibbs, Amon-Ra St. Brown, DJ Reader and Al-Quadin Muhammad in great spirits. Goff finished with 221 passing yards and two touchdown passes to tight end Sam LaPorta while going 21-for-34 with zero interceptions.
“It’s kind of a bucket list for me was to win on Thanksgiving, and now we can start our new streak of winning,” Goff said. “But yeah, it was big. And certainly the game came down to the wire there and you’re worried about which way it’s going to go, but to get the W in the way we did and to end that skid that we’ve been on and kind of put that to rest is another check off our list that we’ve been working on for the last handful of years and it feels good.”
The Lions jumped out to a 16-0 halftime lead but, after having gone 12 straight quarters without surrendering a touchdown, allowed three second-half passing touchdowns by Bears rookie quarterback Caleb Williams to receivers Keenan Allen and DJ Moore as Chicago pulled within three.
However, the Bears came up short as Williams overthrew receiver Rome Odunze as time expired. Prior to that, Williams was sacked at the Lions’ 41 with 32 seconds left, and then the Bears let 26 seconds of clock run, despite having one timeout remaining.
Lions running backs Gibbs and Montgomery combined to rush for 175 yards off 30 carries but ended their 25-game streak of having a rushing touchdown, including the playoffs, which was the longest in NFL history.
Still, hardly anyone on the roster was unhappy leaving Ford Field as the team continues to overcome a laundry list of notable droughts amid a historic start for the franchise. Campbell wouldn’t allow his players to lose sight of that moment.
“Look, I told the team, ‘If you’re not careful, you start grading your own wins.’ And it’s good because you have these standards and the way you think you should play by your own standards, by what you have. It has nothing to do with the opponent,” Campbell said. “It’s just you know yourselves and you know what you’re capable of and so, if you’re not careful, you start going too far down that thing then you start taking wins for granted and ultimately, that’s a good win.”