5 Questions with LeRoy Butler: How the Packers can beat the Lions
LeRoy Butler and Tom Silverstein talk about how youth is on the Green Bay Packers side when they take on the injury-riddled Detroit Lions.
(This story was updated to add more information.)
The Green Bay Packers and Detroit Lions will square off Thursday night in a clash between two teams that have highly favorable playoff outlooks, with Detroit at 11-1 and Green Bay at 9-3.
Though it may not have quite the playoff implications it seems, the game is nonetheless a litmus test of how far the Packers have come since early in the season. Throw in a national-television audience and the unusual theater of a Thursday night for added drama.
The Packers have had some fairly memorable moments on “Thursday Night Football,” a concept that has been in play since 2006 (separate from games that were already happening on Thanksgiving) and has become more formalized in recent years, with every NFL team getting featured on at least one Thursday.
For Green Bay, this marks a second consecutive Thursday game for the first time since 2015. These are some of the most memorable Thursday games and moments involving the Packers — again, separate from Thanksgiving games.
10. Dave Rayner shines in first Thursday showdown (2006)
In the first year of regular Thursday night games, with a limited package of games for the season’s home stretch, Green Bay defeated Minnesota in a … uh, quite the contest. The 9-7 win in the rain at Lambeau Field was punctuated by rookie Dave Rayner’s third field goal of the game, a 44-yarder that gave the Packers the winning points. On the losing sideline was Ryan Longwell, who had been the Packers kicker the previous nine years.
Minnesota’s only points came on an interception return for touchdown by Fred Smoot, and the Vikings were held to a measly three first downs and 104 total yards. Brett Favre threw interceptions on consecutive offensive snaps (Smoot and former Packers safety Darren Sharper on the next drive), and Packers tight end Bubba Franks fumbled on the goal line after that. But Favre still rallied the Packers, and a 36-yard pass to Ruvell Martin set up the winning kick.
(Rayner, we might add, is an unsung hero of the Packers making the playoffs in 2010 for a Super Bowl run, even though he played for the Lions).
9. Oh great, it’s Seattle again (2018)
Losing a double-digit lead at CenturyLink Field? The Packers already did that in the playoffs after the 2014 season in devastating fashion, and it’s the same house of horrors that brought Packers fans another nationally televised nightmare in 2012, the Fail Mary. This time, Seattle scored on a touchdown pass with 5:08 to go for a 27-24 lead, and when Aaron Rodgers missed wide-open Marquez Valdes-Scantling on third-and-2 with 4:20 left from its own 33, Green Bay elected to punt. The Packers never got the ball back. Mike McCarthy had two games left as Packers head coach.
8. The Matt LaFleur debut (2019)
Opening the season Sept. 5 against the Chicago Bears, the Green Bay Packers started the Matt LaFleur era off in … style, we guess … with a 10-3 win at Soldier Field. Newcomer Adrian Amos intercepted Mitchell Trubisky in the end zone with 2 minutes left to play on third-and-10 from the 16, allowing the Packers to hold on for the season-opening victory after Mason Crosby’s field goal with 5:20 left.
7. Packers left on the doorstep vs. Eagles (2019)
In the second Thursday night game of the month Sept. 26, Green Bay dropped its first game of the season in wholly frustrating fashion, 34-27 to Philadelphia. Rodgers was intercepted with 28 seconds left on a second-and-goal snap from the 3-yard line, the second drive that had knocked on the door and fallen short. Earlier in the fourth, Rodgers’ fourth-down pass to Jimmy Graham on fourth-and-1 was incomplete, turning the ball back over to the Eagles.
6. The Danny Trevathan hit (2017)
Davante Adams was drilled in a helmet-to-helmet crash during the third quarter by Bears linebacker Danny Trevathan, knocked to the turf and ultimately sent to the hospital. Trevathan was given a two-game suspension, reduced to one game on appeal. Adams was released from the hospital the next day and played the following week, an unforgettable comeback in which Adams caught a 12-yard touchdown pass with 16 seconds left as Green Bay shocked Dallas 35-31. The scary moment in the Bears game also gave the Packers new life, a fresh set of downs on a play that otherwise would have resulted in fourth down. Green Bay later scored to go ahead 28-7 en route to a 35-14 win over the Bears.
5. Julius Peppers pick-6 (2014)
It was a Thursday night beatdown against the injury-depleted Vikings at Lambeau, with the Packers jumping out to a 28-0 lead at half and a 42-0 lead entering the fourth quarter before settling for a 42-10 win. Future Hall of Famer Julius Peppers dropped back into coverage, picked off a tipped pass from backup quarterback Christian Ponder and returned it 49 yards for a score midway through the second quarter to contribute in the rout.
4. Tim Masthay to Tom Crabtree (2012)
The Packers busted out a trick play against the Bears in a 23-10 win, with tight end Tom Crabtree scooting 27 yards for a touchdown off a shuffle pass from from punter/holder Tim Masthay late in the second quarter on a fake field-goal attempt. Masthay never even got off the ground to push the ball into the hands of Crabtree, who had been lined up on the left side of the line.
3. Randall Cobb’s return and a game-clinching stop (2011)
With the Packers riding high off a Super Bowl triumph, the NFL pitted the previous two Super Bowl winners against each other on opening night, a Thursday clash Sept. 28, 2011, against the Saints. The game featured high drama, a 42-34 victory that ended at the 1-yard line, when Saints running back Mark Ingram was stuffed by Clay Matthews and Morgan Burnett as time expired.
But it’s also remembered as a wildly successful debut for rookie receiver Randall Cobb, who caught a 32-yard touchdown pass and then tied an NFL record with a 108-yard kickoff return for a touchdown in the third quarter. The second-round draft pick from Kentucky went on to a successful career in Green and Gold, and the Packers went on to win the first 13 games of the year before finishing the regular season 15-1.
2. Rasul Douglas wins the game (2021)
In an incredible twist of fate, Packers cornerback Rasul Douglas — a player plucked off the Arizona Cardinals practice squad just a couple of weeks earlier — hauled in a game-clinching interception against his old team with 15 seconds left on a pass that appeared to confuse receiver A.J. Green. The Cardinals were poised to at least tie the game, if not win it, when they moved down to the 5-yard line and trailed 24-21, but Douglas made sure the Cardinals took their first loss of the season after starting 7-0. The Packers, meanwhile, matched Arizona’s record and improved to 7-1.
1. Meet Aaron Rodgers (2007)
The 37-27 loss might have been one of the most important setbacks in Packers franchise history, even though the team fell to 10-2 at the time in a clash with host Dallas one week after Thanksigiving.
Brett Favre left the game with injury, but Rodgers engineered touchdown drives of 74 yards to end the first half and 74 more to open the third quarter, pulling Green Bay to within 27-24. Wisconsin native Tony Romo quarterbacked the Cowboys to a victory from there, but it appeared Green Bay’s succession plan for a potential Favre departure had some legs.
In Ian O’Connor’s book about Aaron Rodgers (“Out of the Darkness,” released in August), one segment hints strongly that the performance convinced Packers leadership that they could move on from Favre, which they did after the 2007 season.
The obvious No. 1: The Miracle in Motown
Oops, we mistakenly left this off the list altogether initially. Which is fine, because it’s really in a category all its own.
Almost everyone remembers where they were when Richard Rodgers inexplicably came down with the 61-yard heave into the end zone with zeroes on the clock Dec. 3, 2015.
The Packers had lost four of five games, including an ugly Thanksgiving loss to the Bears one week earlier. And it sure appeared this one in Detroit was going down the drain, as well, when time ran out on the Packers during a doomed last-gasp lateral play with the Lions leading, 23-21.
But wait! Detroit’s Devin Taylor was flagged for a facemask, and that allowed the Packers one last snap from the 39-yard line, and the Packers made it count in dramatic fashion.
Aaron Rodgers threw a rainbow into the end zone, the tight end somehow got the positioning he needed to bring it down, and Green Bay prevailed, 27-23, in the first of three straight wins that helped the Packers reach the playoffs.
