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The Green Bay Packers, with Aaron Rodgers leading their offense, at Lambeau Field on a crisp and clear fall night with temperatures in the low 40’s. All the makings of a great primetime National Football League matchup.

But then, the Detroit Lions show up.

This is a team that has a tradition of hosting the Thanksgiving game that goes back to before World War II, and there were rumblings a few years ago, threatening to take the holiday game away from Detroit because they were so bad for so long. One of only two NFL teams to lose all games during a 16 game season, the Lions lost all their games in 2008 and the Cleveland Browns matched that low point with a winless campaign in 2017. This is not what the NFL wanted to feature as part of their holiday football feast.

But, these are not those Lions. The 2019 Lions have the look of a playoff team, and the door might open while they battle three highly regarded NFC North Division opponents, the Minnesota Vikings and Chicago Bears in addition to tonight’s opponent.

How could the Lions survive against those three teams that are considered by most to be better than Detroit? First, the Packers may not be as good as their 4-1 season mark would indicate. They are under the direction of first-year head coach Brian LaFleur, who may have a bright future but has inherited a team that wouldn’t be among the strongest his predecessor, Mike McCarthy, coached.

The Los Angeles Chargers host the Pittsburgh Steelers tonight in a game that features a pair of teams that have been legitimate Super Bowl contenders in recent seasons. They might not be this year.

The Steelers have had more trouble this season than a dog catcher chasing a pit bull without a net. They have had to open a new can of quarterbacks seemingly on a weekly basis. When the Jacksonville Jaguars lost the starting quarterback they acquired from the Philadelphia Eagles to replace Blake Bortles, namely Nick Foles, in the first quarter of the opening game to an injury, the Steelers shipped Joshua Dobbs to Jacksonville for a fifth round draft choice in next year’s NFL draft.

It was a nice thing to do for Dobbs, who seemed to have potential while the Jaguars were in need of a new starter. But, a few days later, it was the Steelers in need of a capable backup quarterback when Ben Roethlisberger suffered an elbow injury that sidelines him for the season.

The Steelers wished they still had Dobbs as a backup, but were satisfied to give second-year pro Rudolph Mason an opportunity. That worked a little, but when Mason was injured in last week’s loss to the Baltimore Ravens, Pittsburgh was searching for a new face to put behind center.

They came up with Delvin Hodges, who has a name as familiar in the NFL as someone in the witness protection program.

There are those games that nearly everyone can agree on, and for six days a week, you can win while telling your friends who your money is on.

Problem with these six day wins, is the games are played on the seventh day. If the public is lining up behind a team that is having trouble, but figure they know when they are going to break out, the seventh day is almost always a disappointment for the six-day agreed upon winner.

We’ve got a game tomorrow that meets this criteria, and I think this is the last day people will be boosting that their money is on the Atlanta Falcons when they visit the Arizona Cardinals. The Falcons have won only one game this year, and that was in a perfect motivational spot against the Philadelphia Eagles in second week action.

In that contest, the Falcons were at home, getting points on the spread, and had a double revenge edge against Philadelphia. The Eagles edged Atlanta in the playoffs on their way to a Super Bowl victory two years ago, and beat them in the opening Thursday night game last season. Despite all those motivational and situational edges, Atlanta required a late red zone stand to preserve a four point win, 24-20.

Since that victory, the Falcons have lost to the Indianapolis Colts, Tennessee Titans and Houston Texans, but everyone figures this is where they snap that losing streak when they meet a suspect Arizona squad. Few things are more crippling to a teams performance than to think they are going to win even though they haven’t in recent weeks.