The Detroit Lions’ best chance to finally bury Jordan Love in the backfield also turned out to be their final one. It was last Thanksgiving, and Green Bay held a 31-24 lead with under two minutes to go.
The climax had arrived – a 4th-and-3 situation at the 45-yard line on the plus side of 50. Love, in shotgun, took the snap and retreated a few steps as Alim McNeil and Aidan Hutchinson closed in on him. Fading away, Love lofted the ball up to Dontayvion Wicks just before McNeill and Hutchinson reached him. Sixteen yards downfield, Wicks snatched it out of the air. First down. Game over.
It was fitting denouement, in many ways. After all, Love wasn’t sacked on that final dropback, just as he wasn’t on each of the 55 before it during his two starts
against the Lions last season. Less than a year after the Packers completed the season sweep last November, McNeill stood at his locker and said that Detroit can’t let Love walk away unscathed again Sunday, when the two teams square off at Ford Field.
“We gotta get him on the ground,” McNeill told the Free Press. “We gotta hit him after he’s throwing the ball. Pester him. Pester him. Pester him all game long. Don’t let him get comfortable.”
In a league where the margins are so thin, McNeill knows that a big loss for any team can not only alter the outcome of a drive but a game as well. Had the Lions taken Love down behind the scrimmage just once during that Turkey Day showdown last year, maybe the result would have been different.
“You don’t have too many plays from 2nd-and-20, 2nd-and-30, stuff like that” said McNeill, the Lions’ top interior tackle. “That changes the entire game … If we get him on the ground that’s everything … He’s gonna throw that [expletive] ball. That’s what he does.”
That’s especially true this year, as Green Bay’s ground attack has shriveled after running back Josh Jacobs was placed on the commissioner’s exempt list and missed the first six games following his May arrest in connection with an alleged domestic violence incident. With the Packers ranked at the bottom in the NFL in rushing, Love is averaging 37.7 pass attempts per game – almost nine more than he did in 2025.
“He's dangerous when you just let him rip it out,” Lions coach Dan Campbell said. “He just lets it go with the quick release, but he's more dangerous when he's able to buy time and that's where he's most deadly. So, we can't let these turn into these five-second plays, six-second plays. I like our chances better than they've been with this front that we've got.”
Campbell should.
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Detroit leads the NFL with 20 sacks and averages more quarterback hits per game – 9.4 – than any other team.
The pass rush, which has been one of the Lions’ greatest strengths, was the catalyst for their best defensive performance this season during a 45-21 victory over Arizona on Oct. 11. They repeatedly crashed Jacoby Brissett’s pocket, sacking him five times. Those negative plays were damaging for the Cardinals, as they failed to score on each drive Brissett lost yardage.
It was the latest good effort by a front that has become less dependent on Hutchinson and is able to draw pressure from multiple sources. DJ Wonnum, a seventh-year veteran who was acquired in March, tops the Lions with five sacks. Hutchinson, the Lions’ star edge defender, has collected four and McNeill 3½. Five other players have produced at least one.
“We are just going out there and playing our brand of football, keeping it simple,” McNeill said. “We’re not really doing too much. Guys are winning their rushes. But we’ve got to keep doing that.”
Against Love, they must.
“We have to get after him,” Hutchinson said.
There is reason to believe the Lions can accomplish that goal.
Through six games, Love has been sacked at a 5.44% rate – the highest of his career.
Even with Jacobs eligible to return this week, it’s expected that the Packers will remain reliant on Love’s right arm. If so, there will be opportunities for the Lions to hit their target as long as they can consistently penetrate Green Bay’s line.
“We have to capitalize on those,” Campbell said.
But McNeill knows it’s easier said than done against the elusive Love.
“We’ve just gotta keep him in that phone booth, keep him bottled up, because he’s pretty dynamic,” McNeill said.
That was hammered home to McNeill on that fourth-down pass last Thanksgiving that sealed the Lions’ fate.
Less than a year later, McNeill will have his first chance to deliver some payback.
Contact Rainer Sabin at rsabin@freepress.com. Follow him @RainerSabin on X.
This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Why Detroit Lions' D-Line is the key to beating Green Bay Packers
