Detroit Lions Dominate Eagles on Thanksgiving Day By 45-14 Final Score

The Detroit Lions dominated the Philadelphia Eagles in all aspects of the game en route to a 45-14 final score victory on Thanksgiving Day.

For all the struggles the Detroit Lions have had over the years, they’ve typically seemed to bring the best version of themselves to their traditional Thanksgiving Day game.

This year the Lions welcomed in a Philadelphia Eagles team that was banged up and struggling and took care of business in front of an enthusiastic home crowd and a national TV audience.

Offensively, the Lions were able to seemingly move the ball at will. Quarterback Matthew Stafford had one of his best games as a member of the Lions, completing 71% of his passes for 337 yards and five touchdowns. The big men on the offensive line gave him time to throw, and he picked apart the Philadelphia secondary with relative ease.

Stafford completed passes to eight different receivers (all of them wearing Honolulu blue shirts) and seemed to consistently deliver the ball on target.

Calvin Johnson was the leading receiver with 93 yards and three touchdowns, but Theo Riddick, Joiquie Bell, and Golden Tate all had at least 50 yards apiece as well.

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The Lions ran the ball for only 108 yards as a team, but they didn’t need to pound the ball on the ground to dominate time of possession. Detroit owned the ball for more than 37 minutes of game time and punted only four times on the afternoon (with two punts coming late in the fourth quarter when the game was all wrapped up and they were just trying to run out clock).

Defensively, the Lions were just as strong. Eagles quarterback Mark Sanchez was sacked six times and was unable to get his team moving down the field for much of the game.

The Eagles couldn’t establish a running attack — they scampered for only 68 yards at just 2.7 yards per attempt — and completed only 19 passes on the game.

After the Eagles scored in the second quarter to make it a 7-7 game, their drive chart ended with punt, punt, fumble, punt, punt, and punt by which time Philadelphia found themselves in the fourth quarter trailing 45-7

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The Lions move to 4-7 on the season — still well out of playoff contention — but one can’t help but think they might still be alive if the end of the Monday Night game in Seattle ended differently with a certain Calvin Johnson fumble and illegal batting non-call.