SI

The Detroit Lions Are the NFL’s Best Story for So Many Reasons

Also in Traina Thoughts: Cris Collinsworth gets so excited by a fake; Stephen A. Smith and LeBron have amusing banter; ‘SNL’ spoofs Draymond Green and more.

Jimmy Traina

In this story:

1. First and foremost, the most important thing about Sunday's Bears-Lions game is that Chicago bettors came very, very close to suffering the worst “Bad Beat” of the 2023 NFL season.

The Bears, who were getting eight points, were up 26–4 with just over three minutes left in regulation before the Lions pulled off a frantic 31–26 comeback win.

A Chicago cover never should’ve been in question, but after taking a 29–26 lead with 31 seconds left, this play happened:

If the Bears’ offensive lineman Darnell Wright doesn’t kick the ball out of the end zone for the safety and a Lions player would’ve fallen on or picked up the ball instead, the final score would’ve been 36–26 and anyone who had money on Chicago would’ve been vomiting.

Now to the Lions.

You can make the argument that Detroit is the most watchable team in the NFL. I have railed against the NFL keeping the Lions as a Thanksgiving fixture (which led to Jim Nantz dropping my name during last year’s Bills-Lions Thanksgiving game), but for the first time in probably forever, I’m looking forward to watching the Lions on Turkey Day. I’d even say there isn’t a team I’d want to watch more on Thursday.

And the reasons are plenty.

Detroit is 8–2 for the first time since 1962. How can you not be happy for the team’s fans, which includes Slim Shady, that have suffered for so many decades?

How surreal has this season been for the Lions? If the Chiefs beat the Eagles tonight on Monday Night Football and the Lions beat the Packers in the early game on Thanksgiving, Detroit will be the No. 1 seed. Not just in the NFC, but in the entire NFL.

Each Lions victory comes with a must-see locker-room speech from coach Dan Campbell. Yesterday was no different.

The only disappointment in Sunday’s comeback victory against the Bears was that the Lions did not have a fourth-down attempt. 

Detroit has gone on fourth down 22 times this season and 100 times in the three seasons that Campbell has been head coach, both NFL highs.

Last week, Campbell addressed his proclivity for going on fourth downs by famously saying, “Here’s what I would say, because I tell my family this, just wear a diaper before some of these games. I‘ll give them an alert and say, ‘Put them on and be ready to roll.’”

For once, America should be ready to roll Thursday with the Lions at 12:30 p.m. ET.

2. I will be 100% honest here. When I watched this play live Sunday night, my first thought was, “That’s a really weird reaction by Cris Collinsworth.”

3. LeBron James seems to have added some kind of smoking gesture to his celebration repertoire. This led to a perfect reaction from Stephen A. Smith, much to the delight of the King.

4. Saturday Night Live mocked Draymond Green and his choke hold on Rudy Gobert over the weekend.

5. Networks will often send promotional packages to writers when they have a big event coming up. For example, right before the World Series. Fox sent me a baseball signed by its studio crew of Kevin Burkhardt, Alex Rodriguez, David Ortiz and Derek Jeter. Now, it would be extremely classless to bash anyone who gives you a gift, so I won’t point out that as a die-hard Yankees fan, having anything signed by A-Rod or Ortiz isn’t exactly ideal.

Amazon Prime, which airs Dolphins-Jets on Black Friday, did better Monday. They sent me a bobblehead of … me. I won’t lie. It took me a while to figure out who it was supposed to be thanks to all the gray, but having your own bobblehead is amusing. But for the record, I have a lot of gray, but not nearly this much, which you can see a little further down if you watch the SI Media Podcast on YouTube.

6. The latest episode of SI Media With Jimmy Traina features a conversation with broadcaster Ian Eagle, from CBS, Turner Sports and the YES Network.

Eagle discusses his hectic work weeks during the NFL and NBA seasons, and shares hilarious traveling stories, including the time he almost missed a game after a flight was canceled. Eagle also explains why he still does NFL preseason games, how he’s approaching the college basketball season now that he will call the Final Four for the first time, being the first NFL broadcaster to make a Travis Kelce–Taylor Swift reference, what it’s like to work with Richard Jefferson, what happens when he goes out to dinner with Bill Raftery and much more.

Following Eagle, Sal Licata from WFAN radio and SNY TV in New York joins me for our weekly “Traina Thoughts” segment. This week, I talk about seeing Bill Burr at Madison Square Garden and a live taping of Conan O’Brien’s podcast last week. We also discuss the big week of NFL games and why Sal has issues with the NFL airing a third game at night on Thanksgiving.

You can listen to the podcast below or download it on Apple, Spotify and Google.

You can also watch SI Media With Jimmy Traina on YouTube.

7. RANDOM VIDEO OF THE DAY: Today is the anniversary of a top 10 “Imagine if Twitter was around” sports moments: “The Play,” which took place on Nov. 29, 1982, in the Cal-Stanford game.

Be sure to catch up on past editions of Traina Thoughts and check out SI Media With Jimmy Traina on Apple, Spotify or Google. You can also follow Jimmy on Twitter, Instagram and TikTok.

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Jimmy Traina
JIMMY TRAINA

Jimmy Traina is a staff writer and podcast host for Sports Illustrated. A 20-year veteran in the industry, he’s been covering the sports media landscape for seven years and writes a daily column, Traina Thoughts. Traina has hosted the Sports Illustrated Media Podcast since 2018, a show known for interviews with some of the most important and powerful people in sports media. He also was the creator and writer of SI’s Hot Clicks feature from 2007 to '13.

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