FIRST DOWN: BUCKET LIST ITEM
Hoisting the Lombardi Trophy is No. 1 on quarterback Jared Goff's NFL bucket list, but he was able to mark another item off, getting to eat some Turkey on live television with teammates after a Thanksgiving win.
Detroit's 23-20 win over Chicago Thursday was the first for Goff on Thanksgiving as Detroit improved their winning streak to 10 games and improved to 11-1 overall.
"That's something that I'll never forget," Goff said afterward. "It was actually pretty good. The stuffing was good. We were having a good time. It's awesome. It's a memory I'll have forever."
Goff finished 21-for-34 passing for 221 yards with two touchdowns, no interceptions and a 100.2 rating.
One takeaway from Thursday's nail-biting finish is how thankful Lions fans should be to have a veteran like Goff. The value of having an experienced player at that spot for those late-game moments and critical situations was certainly highlighted by how the game ended. It's hard to imagine Golf taking too much time and letting the clock run out with a timeout in his pocket.
"It's hard, man – the end of the game stuff, it's hard, it's real-time decisions both sides are making," Goff said. "It's a lot of reps, a lot of time spent on situational stuff, and we came out on top today.
"I thought Caleb (Williams) played really well and I'm sure we'll have our battles for a long time, but he's a good player and did a good job."
It wasn't always pretty for Detroit's offense Thursday, and there's certainly plenty to clean up, but Goff made some critical throws and was mistake-free. It was good to see him mark a Thanksgiving win off his bucket list.
SECOND DOWN: SMITH'S IMPACT
The Lions traded for veteran edge rusher Za’Darius Smith at the deadline to help stem the injury losses of Aidan Hutchinson, Marcus Davenport and others along the edge of Detroit's defensive front.
It was Smith who made arguably the biggest play of the game, recording a sack of Williams with just over 30 seconds left in the game and knocking Chicago out of field goal range at Detroit's 41-yard line. The Bears took too long running the next third-down play and Detroit secured the win.
Despite battling an injury that forced him to leave the field two separate times with training staff, Smith gutted through and finished with three tackles, 1.5 sacks, one tackle for loss and three quarterback hits. He's been such a good addition for this team both on the field and in the locker room.
"Yeah, he's added a lot – energy – energy and understanding of where we're at in our season and what we're looking for," Goff said Smith. "He brings that energy every day, he's obviously such a great player on the field physically, but I think emotionally and his juice daily brings something to that defense. It's fun."
THIRD DOWN: 2 FOR LAPORTA
Second-year tight end Sam LaPorta has battled some nagging injuries all season and his numbers have been down from his Pro Bowl Rookie season partly because of it.
So it was good to see him find the end zone a couple times Thursday as Goff's most reliable weapon in the red zone against the Bears.
"I feel like this is the healthiest he's been in a while during the season," Lions head coach Dan Campbell said. "He's in good shape and he really brings ... I don't want to say you take it for granted, you forget all he does for us."
LaPorta caught just three passes for six yards, but two of those were three and one-yard touchdowns against a really good Bears' defense that came in No. 4 in the NFL in red-zone defense (41 percent).
Him being healthy allows Brock Wright to play his more natural tight end role and Detroit's offense is much more dangerous, especially in the red zone, when LaPorta is healthy and rolling.
"Yeah, it was good – a couple good ones to him," Goff said of his reliable tight end. "Got himself open on both of those and put it right in on him. But he's a good player and he's finally getting back to himself at this point, and it feels good."
LaPorta now has 15 career receiving touchdowns, tied for the fourth most by any tight end through two career seasons.
FOURTH DOWN: A WIN'S A WIN
Campbell said he's going to enjoy his Thanksgiving with his family and he's not going to lose a second of sleep after escaping with a win Thursday at home.
He also said there are things to clean up after Detroit let a 16-point halftime lead melt away, had troubles scoring in the red zone, turned it over inside the Chicago 5-yard line, missed a field goal, and had some untimely penalties.
"You know, if you're not careful, you start grading your own wins, and it's good because you have these standards – the way you think you should play, by your own standards, by what you have," he said. "Has nothing to do with the opponent, 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. Ultimately, that's a good win against an opponent that has fought every week. We did what we had to do to win. We'll clean up the other stuff that cost us some points. I'm not worried about that. But I will take this 'W' and I'm not going to lose sleep over it."
Goff said the red zone issues are something that definitely needs to be cleaned up.
"Obviously the turnover hurts and some of the penalties hurt, and then we just had some crap plays down there that we didn't execute very well," he said. "It just wasn't our best performance in the red zone and we got to be better.
"We'll learn from it, it's good to learn from that stuff and get better. But that is a good unit in the red zone over there, but we had certainly had other opportunities to make plays that we didn't make."
