If the Detroit Lions lose to the Chicago Bears, all bets are off
By Robert Jones
The Detroit Lions lost another winnable game last Sunday and play the Bears on Thanksgiving. After all these years of failure, don’t the fans deserve better?
Happy Thanksgiving! Yes, it’s time for that most honored tradition in Detroit Lions history; the annual Thanksgiving day game. Today’s victim? Most likely the Lions defense.
Last season the Lions hosted the Chicago Bears led by their backup quarterback Chase Daniels and proved to be the most gracious of hosts as they could muster nothing more than a 23-16 loss to their NFC North rivals who eventually won the division.
This season the Bears will finish a distant third place at best but seem to be the favorite to spoil Turkey dinners all over the Motor City for a second straight year. Yeah, happy Thanksgiving.
For those who don’t know the history of the annual Thanksgiving day game, the Lions played the first-ever Turkey day game in 1934 against these very same Chicago Bears. Ironically, the results were no different than what we’ve become used to as Chicago pulled out a 19-16 victory.
As a matter of fact, they played the Bears each Thanksgiving from 1934-1938. The Lions won three of those contests and lost two. Then from 1939-1944, the series was not played due to World War II.
However, since it was re-instated in 1945, the Lions have played on every Thanksgiving Day since and even started the tradition of rotating opponents instead of just facing the Bears every year, except for a 13 game run against the Green Bay Packers from 1951-1963. Their overall record on this joyous holiday is 37-40-2. So yeah, there have been a lot of turkey dinners that have been soured by the Lions play.
The nine-game losing streak from 2004-2012 would mark the high point of Detroit’s futility, while a six-game winning streak from 1950-1955 marks the Lions longest winning streak in the series, which also coincides with the decade the Lions dominated by winning three world championships.
Thanksgiving in a long-celebrated holiday that Detroit can in many ways lay claim to. Unfortunately, these Lions have laid so many eggs on this holiday there is often very little to be thankful for as a fan of the Honolulu Blue and Silver.