We travel all the way back to Week 1 as we continue through our list of the Green Bay Packers’ top plays from the 2025 season. What you’re about to see is what I like to call “the moment I felt like everything would be okay”.
The Game
After surprising everyone by making the 2024 playoffs despite missing QB Jordan Love for several games, the Packers lost a heartbreaking Wild Card matchup to the eventual Super Bowl champions, the Philadelphia Eagles. Heading into Week 1 of the 2025 season, it looked like the Packers were
prepared to run it back with basically the same roster. The team was looking for payback against the Detroit Lions, who had swept them the season prior, and who seemed to have had the Packers’ number for the greater part of the last 4 years.
10 days before this game, the Packers stopped everyone in their tracks by trading Kenny Clark and two first round picks to the Dallas Cowboys for DE Micah Parsons. Fans had been begging for a player of this caliber on the Packers defense, and they finally got him. Suddenly, the 2025 outlook had a lot more hope.
The Situation
We knew heading into the game that Parsons would be on a pitch count as he worked through his recovery from a lingering back injury. In the first half of the game, despite the restricted playing time of their new star, the Packers held the Lions to just 3 points. They were looking dominant, but we all held our breath, waiting for the other shoe to drop. After all, a blown lead was the Green Bay special.
The Lions tried their best to come back in the second half, and the Packers just kept shutting them down. After a field goal to start the half, the Lions’ next three drives ended in punts and a turnover on downs. By the time their last drive of the game came around, there just wasn’t enough time to build a comeback.
The Play
The score: Packers 27, Lions 6. On 1st and 10 in the 4th quarter, Parsons was on the field, and you could see him fighting through multiple players to get to QB Jared Goff. After coming close, the play ended with an incomplete deep pass to WR Kalif Raymond. The Lions were getting desperate.
On 2nd and 10, Parsons stayed on the field. With 4:16 left in the game, Goff immediately dropped back, and you could see the makings of a “what the hell” deep ball that was definitely going to be caught, because that is simply how the universe works. Except: a wild Micah Parsons appeared! The only way I can describe the next sequence of events is to compare it to the final minutes of a horror movie–the part where we think the killer has finally been defeated, and all of a sudden they burst through the wall, and sack the quarterback. That’s how that goes, right?
We saw Parsons emerge from a huddle of players, and suddenly we were watching a National Geographic documentary. A lion chasing a gazelle.
The Impact
The sack cost the Lions about 4 yards, and forced them to quit trying the desperate deep passes they so needed to even think about coming back. While they did end up scoring during this drive, they ate up all but 55 seconds of the clock, and the Packers came out victorious, 27-13.
Had this sack been by literally any other player, it would be just a brief moment on the 2025 highlight reel. However, our APC team all agreed that the impact of this was much bigger than the play itself. After years of watching Rashan Gary walk his way to opposing quarterbacks, we were pleading with the front office to do something on the defensive side of the ball. We knew what kind of player we were getting after the Parsons trade. This play was the moment we all got to say “oh my goodness, he’s actually a Green Bay Packer”. Pure euphoria.
