For sports fans, Thanksgiving Day is all about the NFL lineup. If you're planning to watch all the games, follow your favorite teams on Twitter, and see what fans everywhere are saying about the game. The undefeated and seemingly unstoppable defending champions from Green Bay sweep down into Detroit, where a determined bunch of Lions await. That describes Thursday’s game at Ford Field, where the 10-0 Packers will tangle with the 7-3 Lions. But that was also the situation 49 years ago, the last time an undefeated N.F.L. team played on Thanksgiving. That was when the Packers — 10-0 and the winners of 12 straight games, including the 1961 N.F.L. championship — went to Detroit on Thanksgiving and fell in one of the more stunning losses of the Vince Lombardi era.
The Packers were a fearsome machine in 1962, featuring stars like Bart Starr, Jim Taylor, Paul Hornung, Forrest Gregg, Jerry Kramer, Ray Nitschke and Willie Wood. Through 10 games, they had outscored opponents, 309-74, winning by an average of nearly 24 points. “They had it all,” said Keith Dunnavant, the author “America’s Quarterback,” a recent biography of Starr. “Just about everybody on the team was at their peak.”
Yet the Lions were nearly their equal, especially on defense, where they had five future Hall of Famers, including middle linebacker Joe Schmidt and defensive backs Dick Lane, who was nicknamed Night Train, and Dick LeBeau.
“We all felt we had a better football team,” Schmidt said. But it would be the front four of Sam Williams, Alex Karras, Roger Brown and Darris McCord — the original Fearsome Foursome — that left an imprint that day, Brown in particular.
The Lions were still smarting from their previous meeting with the Packers. On Oct. 7, Detroit had gone into Green Bay with a 3-0 record and a confidence that they could gain control of the division. The Lions led, 7-6, with a little under two minutes remaining, and faced third-and-8.
Lions quarterback Milt Plum dropped back to pass. But receiver Terry Barr slipped in the mud, and the ball sailed into the arms of defensive back Herb Adderley, who raced down the Green Bay sideline to the Lions’ 18. Hornung would end up kicking his third field goal of the game, and the Packers escaped with a 9-7 victory.
The Lions’ locker room exploded in anger, with the defense blaming the offense for the defeat.
Two weeks later, Detroit lost, 17-14, to the Giants, so the Thanksgiving Day rematch with Green Bay was a game the Lions had to win to catch the Packers.
Detroit fans camped out overnight in the bitter cold to snap up the few remaining bleacher tickets still available. Tiger Stadium was filled with 57,598 fans and millions more tuned in to CBS for the noon start. “Everyone watched that game,” Brown said recently. “God and his 12 disciples were watching.”
Green Bay was a 7-point favorite to stay unbeaten, but it had shown some vulnerability. The Packers needed a fourth-quarter touchdown and two goal-line stands to defeat Baltimore, 17-13, the previous weekend. Hornung, the N.F.L.’s reigning most valuable player, had injured his knee six weeks earlier and would miss the game. And guard Fuzzy Thurston, the man responsible for blocking Brown, was dealing with his mother’s death earlier in the week.
Green Bay’s plan was for Starr to neutralize the Lions’ rush with a short passing game, but Detroit’s defensive coordinator, Don Shula, saw it coming, and had his secondary play close to the Packers’ receivers.
“It was the perfect scheme,” Dunnavant says. “They jammed them up.”
.
Though not grouped with the best linemen in N.F.L. lore, Brown was a terror, 6 feet 5 inches and 300 pounds of bad news, the first player to combine enormous size with the speed and agility to beat opposing linemen. He sacked Starr for a 15-yard loss on Green Bay’s first series, an early announcement that Thurston and Gregg and the rest of the Packers’ line would be in trouble.
“We confused their blocking with twists and stunts, and they lost their poise,” said Schmidt, who went on to coach the Lions.
Brown added, “We did all kinds of nutty things to get to Starr.” He added that Thurston could have had a howitzer, “and he wouldn’t have stopped me; he was overwhelmed.”
After the sack, Boyd Dowler shanked a 15-year punt. It took only three plays for Detroit to score, with Gail Cogdill beating Wood for a 33-yard touchdown. Things did not get better for Starr on the next Packers possession. He was sacked for a 9-yard loss by “a whole host of Lions,” according to the official play-by-play report.
The Packers were a fearsome machine in 1962, featuring stars like Bart Starr, Jim Taylor, Paul Hornung, Forrest Gregg, Jerry Kramer, Ray Nitschke and Willie Wood. Through 10 games, they had outscored opponents, 309-74, winning by an average of nearly 24 points. “They had it all,” said Keith Dunnavant, the author “America’s Quarterback,” a recent biography of Starr. “Just about everybody on the team was at their peak.”
Yet the Lions were nearly their equal, especially on defense, where they had five future Hall of Famers, including middle linebacker Joe Schmidt and defensive backs Dick Lane, who was nicknamed Night Train, and Dick LeBeau.
“We all felt we had a better football team,” Schmidt said. But it would be the front four of Sam Williams, Alex Karras, Roger Brown and Darris McCord — the original Fearsome Foursome — that left an imprint that day, Brown in particular.
The Lions were still smarting from their previous meeting with the Packers. On Oct. 7, Detroit had gone into Green Bay with a 3-0 record and a confidence that they could gain control of the division. The Lions led, 7-6, with a little under two minutes remaining, and faced third-and-8.
Lions quarterback Milt Plum dropped back to pass. But receiver Terry Barr slipped in the mud, and the ball sailed into the arms of defensive back Herb Adderley, who raced down the Green Bay sideline to the Lions’ 18. Hornung would end up kicking his third field goal of the game, and the Packers escaped with a 9-7 victory.
The Lions’ locker room exploded in anger, with the defense blaming the offense for the defeat.
Two weeks later, Detroit lost, 17-14, to the Giants, so the Thanksgiving Day rematch with Green Bay was a game the Lions had to win to catch the Packers.
Detroit fans camped out overnight in the bitter cold to snap up the few remaining bleacher tickets still available. Tiger Stadium was filled with 57,598 fans and millions more tuned in to CBS for the noon start. “Everyone watched that game,” Brown said recently. “God and his 12 disciples were watching.”
Green Bay was a 7-point favorite to stay unbeaten, but it had shown some vulnerability. The Packers needed a fourth-quarter touchdown and two goal-line stands to defeat Baltimore, 17-13, the previous weekend. Hornung, the N.F.L.’s reigning most valuable player, had injured his knee six weeks earlier and would miss the game. And guard Fuzzy Thurston, the man responsible for blocking Brown, was dealing with his mother’s death earlier in the week.
Green Bay’s plan was for Starr to neutralize the Lions’ rush with a short passing game, but Detroit’s defensive coordinator, Don Shula, saw it coming, and had his secondary play close to the Packers’ receivers.
“It was the perfect scheme,” Dunnavant says. “They jammed them up.”
.
Though not grouped with the best linemen in N.F.L. lore, Brown was a terror, 6 feet 5 inches and 300 pounds of bad news, the first player to combine enormous size with the speed and agility to beat opposing linemen. He sacked Starr for a 15-yard loss on Green Bay’s first series, an early announcement that Thurston and Gregg and the rest of the Packers’ line would be in trouble.
“We confused their blocking with twists and stunts, and they lost their poise,” said Schmidt, who went on to coach the Lions.
Brown added, “We did all kinds of nutty things to get to Starr.” He added that Thurston could have had a howitzer, “and he wouldn’t have stopped me; he was overwhelmed.”
After the sack, Boyd Dowler shanked a 15-year punt. It took only three plays for Detroit to score, with Gail Cogdill beating Wood for a 33-yard touchdown. Things did not get better for Starr on the next Packers possession. He was sacked for a 9-yard loss by “a whole host of Lions,” according to the official play-by-play report.
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