Thoughts on Week 1 (2025): Green Bay Packers vs. Detroit Lions

Hope all of you are doing well wherever you’re reading this. For the moment, I am doing great as I watched the Green Bay Packers open the 2025 season with a dominant win at Lambeau Field over the Detroit Lions. It's crazy that it took this long for Matt LaFleur to have a Week 1 game at Lambeau Field, but the wait was worth it. This win marks the first time that the Packers have won at Lambeau Field against Detroit since September of 2021. Ever since Dan Campbell took over as Lions coach in 2021, the Lions have had the Packers’ number for the most part. However, I think that will change after the win on Sunday. With that introduction out of the way, let’s get into detail on how this game went down.

After the opening kickoff, the Packers started the game on the offensive side of the football. The return by Savion Williams initially got the Packers the ball near midfield, but a holding penalty on Green Bay made the offense start at their own 17 yard line. Even with that, Green Bay’s offense, led by QB Jordan Love, was able to move the ball down the field on their first possession. On the second play of the drive, Love found Romeo Doubs for a 20 yard completion to convert a second and 9. 3 plays later, Love found Dontayvion Wicks for a 16-yard completion that converted a third and 10. After two plays that went two yards each, the Packers faced a third and 6 at the Detroit 42 yard line. Thankfully, the third down was converted with an 11-yard completion to Matthew Golden (who changed his number from 22 to 0 just before the regular season). On the next play, the Packers got a free first down thanks to Lions safety Brian Branch throwing Tucker Kraft’s helmet. Three plays later, Kraft caught his first touchdown of the season on a great throw by Love. He didn’t do a Lambeau Leap, but it was cool that he celebrated with his teammates. The extra point kick by Brandon McManus was good, giving Green Bay a 7-0 lead with 9:26 left in the first quarter. The Packers’ kickoff return coverage unit did good on the first kickoff return for Detroit, as the Lions started at their own 24 yard line on offense. The Packers held the Lions to only 3 yards on the first two plays, setting up a third and 7 from the 27 yard line. That’s when Micah Parsons made his official Packers debut and helped force the Lions to go three and out. He went past Penei Sewell and forced Jared Goff to throw it underneath. Jahmyr Gibbs, who caught the pass, was tackled for a two yard loss by Lukas Van Ness. Matthew Golden returned the ensuing punt 11 yards to the Green Bay 48 yard line. From there, the Packers were able to move the ball down the field on their second drive. On third and 7 from the Detroit 49 yard line, Love found Jayden Reed for a 26 yard pass completion that got Green Bay into field goal range. The Packers were not able to get a touchdown on this drive in the end, but Brandon McManus made the field goal from 34 yards out, increasing the lead to 10-0 with 3:58 left in the first quarter. The Lions started their next drive at their own 10 yard line after a holding penalty on the kickoff return. From there, they went on an 18 play drive that lasted nearly 10 minutes. There were a couple of long down and distance situations that the Lions converted, including one in which Amon-Ra St. Brown made a sideline catch that I thought was incomplete at first. When I saw the slow motion replay, he barely got both of his feet in bounds. Matt LaFleur threw his first challenge flag of the season, which didn’t go well as the ruling was upheld. Later in the drive, Xavier McKinney was caught with a bogus “taunting” penalty that gave the Lions a free first down (please get rid of these taunting penalties, NFL). Thankfully, the Lions were held to a field goal on the drive. The 30-yard field goal attempt was made by Jake Bates, cutting the lead to 10-3 midway through the second quarter. After the kickoff went into the end zone for a touchback, the Packers started their next possession at their own 35 yard line. On the first play, Josh Jacobs picked up a blitz, giving Love plenty of time to throw deep to Romeo Doubs. That catch by Doubs was followed up with a 17-yard touchdown catch (and Lambeau Leap) by Jayden Reed. The extra point kick was good, increasing the lead to 17-3 with 8:34 left in the second quarter. The ensuing kickoff return for the Lions gave their offense the ball at their own 29 yard line. From there, Detroit was once again able to move the ball down the field on a drive that lasted nearly 7 and a half minutes. Thankfully, the defense was able to force a turnover. On third and 7 at the Green Bay 16 yard line, Micah Parsons pressured Jared Goff to force a pass that was picked off by safety Evan Williams, ending a potential scoring drive for the Lions. The Packers weren’t able to do anything with the opportunity, but at least they were able to keep the lead at 17-3 entering the halftime break.

After the kickoff to start the third quarter, the Lions were able to move the ball down the field in the hope of getting more points. The Packers’ defense did its job by forcing the Lions to settle for a field goal. The kick by Jake Bates was good from 27 yards out, decreasing the lead to 17-6 with 9:40 left in the third quarter. The Packers did nothing besides do three run plays and punt back to Detroit on their first third quarter possession. Three more punts followed suit, with two of them by Detroit. During that stretch of punts, Packers fans were given a sigh of relief when one Jordan Love pick was dropped and the other one, which was a pick six, was nullified by a penalty on Detroit. Hopefully that’s the only time that Love has those moments this season. Zach Tom hurt his hip during that nullified pick six, but I don’t think it will be a long term problem. The second punt by Detroit in the second half was out of their own end zone after a sack by Rashan Gary, which should have been a safety, and two runs that were stuffed. Jayden Reed returned that punt 20 yards to the Detroit 36 yard line. The Packers were then able to score a touchdown on that drive. Josh Jacobs ran it in from three yards out, giving him his first touchdown of the season. The extra point kick was good, increasing the lead to 24-6 with a few minutes left in the game. The Packers defense was able to force a turnover on downs when Devonte Wyatt sacked Jared Goff on fourth and 2 from the 35 yard line of Detroit. The Packers then added to their lead with another field goal by Brandon McManus, this time from 38 yards out. Micah Parsons was finally able to get a sack on the defense’s last time on the field on Sunday. If only that sack was the end of the Lions’ last drive. Instead, the Lions were able to get a garbage time touchdown thanks to a great catch by rookie receiver Isaac TeSlaa. The extra point was good, decreasing the lead to 27-13 with very little time left. The onside kick went out of bounds and the Packers were able to run the rest of the time off the clock, sealing the win. With this win at Lambeau Field, the Packers are 1-0 on the season.

(Here are the highlights of the game, provided by the NFL’s YouTube page. Click on “Watch on YouTube” if you want to.)

On offense, the Packers played pretty well in front of their home crowd. They scored on their first three possessions, with two of the drives ending in a touchdown and the other one ending with a field goal. I’m glad that the offense was able to start quick and not fall into many penalties or awkward situations. The second half was not as good as the first half. There were a few punts in the second half, and there were the close calls with the near pick and the pick six that was nullified due to penalty. In addition, Zach Tom got his hip banged up on that nullified pick six. Due to the Packers being on a short week with the game against Washington on Thursday night, I don’t expect Zach Tom to play that night. Even with that injury, the offensive linemen (and the running backs who helped with blitz pickups) were still able to keep Jordan Love from getting sacked all game. Thanks to that protection, Love looked comfortable all game as he threw for two touchdowns. The one to Tucker Kraft was a very accurate throw in traffic. I was a bit nervous when he landed awkwardly after a scramble, but he turned out ok. The run game didn’t get going early, though that was because the Lions wanted to focus on stopping it. Still, Josh Jacobs was able to score a touchdown late in the game. He did the blitz pickup that helped Jordan Love throw that deep pass to Romeo Doubs. Doubs led the receiving corps with 2 catches for 68 yards. Reed and Wicks contributed as well, with Reed catching Love’s second TD pass. I am glad that Reed and Wicks played on Sunday even with their injury issues during training camp. Hopefully the next game for the offense doesn’t have any jet sweep plays, which didn’t work at all for Green Bay. A fast start is needed on offense all season, so I hope that continues.

On defense, the Packers kept the Lions in check throughout the whole game, not counting garbage time stuff. There were times where the Lions were able to get into field goal range, but Green Bay’s defense, who is coached by Jeff Hafley, was able to keep them from scoring touchdowns when the time was right. Micah Parsons made his Packers debut on Sunday, albeit on a limited snap basis. When he was on the field, including on that first third down, he made an immediate impact. From helping other players get sacks and forcing bad throws, including an interception, to getting a sack in the fourth quarter, Micah did it all. I’m glad that he is a Green Bay Packer. Rashan Gary, Lukas Van Ness, and Devonte Wyatt were the ones to got a sack of Goff other than Parsons. The running back duo of Jahmyr Gibbs and David Montgomery were kept in check in both run and pass situations. As long as the defense continues to play well with everyone healthy (hoping for the best with Brenton Cox Jr. and Nate Hobbs), the Packers have a great chance to win plenty of games this season.

On Special Teams, the Packers played good for most of it. Other than a couple of penalties, including one on the opening kickoff return, no bad things happened on special teams. Everyone did their job good enough to not screw up the Packers’ chances at winning. Brandon McManus made each kick, Daniel Whelan punted well, and no kicks or punts were blocked. A couple of nice punt returns set the Packers up for scoring drives that helped increase Green Bay’s lead over Detroit. I give credit to Rich Bisaccia for making sure that his unit didn’t screw things up. Hopefully that continues from week to week.

Overall, it was great to see the Packers finally win at Lambeau against the Lions after three straight losses to them at home. In addition, it was nice to see the Packers match their division win total from last year already. For those unaware, the Packers won only one game against an NFC North opponent last year, and it was thanks to the fingertip of Karl Brooks against Chicago. The Packers will have to wait until November 23rd against the Vikings before playing a division rival again. Next up for the Packers is a Thursday night game at Lambeau Field against the Washington Commanders. I’ll be back for the recap of that game on either Friday or Saturday. Have a great week, everyone. Go Pack Go!