The Green Bay Packers beat the Detroit Lions 29-22 on Thanksgiving, but the final score was much closer than the actual game. It was a blowout in the Packers' favor, with Green Bay running out to a 23-6 lead and controlling the tempo of the game until a too-little-too-late fourth-quarter surge from the first-place Lions.
Stuff happens, of course, and the Lions shouldn't panic. But, this is the second straight week in which Detroit fell behind early to a significantly inferior (on paper) division opponent. Detroit managed the magical comeback against the Chicago Bears in Week 11, but the Packers are now 5-6 with actual momentum toward a wild card spot.
The Lions' loss can be blamed on several folks. The offense has hit a wall lately. Jared Goff has been splendid in fourth quarters and otherwise ineffective over the last two weeks. On the surface, Detroit's offensive production looks solid — 464 yards compared to Green Bay's 377 yards — but the Lions essentially padded their stats in garbage time.
Jordan Love was the best QB on the field for long stretches of Thursday's game, completing 22-of-32 passes for 268 yards and three touchdowns. His best performance in a while, maybe ever at the NFL level. Goff accrued 332 yards and two touchdowns, but he fumbled three times as the Green Bay defense turned in a dominant afternoon.
Detroit's No. 1 wideout Amon-Ra St. Brown is blameless, really. He caught nine of 11 targets for 95 yards, making several impressive catches in traffic and legging out chunk gains. Ask the Packers' defense, however, and St. Brown was a primary source of motivation coming into the week.
"I know one of them [St. Brown] said he didn't know anybody on Green Bay personally," Carrington Valentine told reporters. "He need to go watch more film... If he don't [know now], it's gonna be a long time coming for him."
That's a strong statement from Valentine, and a risky quote from St. Brown that clearly backfired. There's a fine line between trash talk and bulletin board material, and sometimes a statement falls inadvertently on the wrong side of that line.
Only, there's one slight problem. St. Brown never actually said he didn't know anybody on the Packers defense. The original quote, posted below, was a fake quote from a Lions fan on Twitter.
Oops.
Lions fan motivates Packers win with fake Amon-Ra St. Brown quote
A tough break for the Detroit fan and Twitter user @Wafzes, who is at least partially responsible for his team's defeat on the day of thanks. Maybe that's why we shouldn't make verified accounts available for purchase, but alas — this isn't the forum for such a debate.
In the end, it's a comical storyline and little more. It's important to fact-check on the interwebs (the original tweet has been viewed 584.8K times as of this writing), but NFL players tend to manifest motivation from the most unlikely of sources. It doesn't take much, real or fake, to get a player up for a division rivalry game on Thanksgiving.
St. Brown probably has a bone to pick, but he put his best foot forward and carried his weight. He can't control this strange social media environment we live in. The Lions will get a chance to put this strange loss (and even stranger fake quote controversy) behind them in Week 13 against the New Orleans Saints.