One thing is for certain, in the history of the NFL, the New England Patriots and Detroit Lions have not played each other very often. New England currently holds a 6-4 all time record in their history. That comes courtesy of Tom Brady as he is 3-0 against the Lions in his career, including going 2-0 against them on Thanksgiving day. Oddly though, Matthew Stafford has yet to play against Tom Brady. Since Stafford was drafted, the only opportunity to play against the Patriots would have been their last game on Thanksgiving day in 2010, when the teams last met. But instead, current Rams quarterback and former Lions backup was playing in that contest, which the Patriots dominated by a final of 45-24, including scoring the final 28 points of the game.
But that is all in the past now, as the Lions are having one of their best seasons in a long time. They are coming off of a rough loss to the Arizona Cardinals and have had some injury issues during the year, but right now hold a 7-3 record. One of the major keys to their success has been their costless agent acquisition of wide receiver Golden Tate from the Seattle Seahawks. Through 10 games, he has 68 catches for 950 yards. Plus he has kept pressure off of Calvin Johnson when he has been healthy enough to play this year. But the main reason they have been successful has been their defense, led by Ndamukong Suh, who have only given up to 24 points in a single game this year, when they played a much healthier Carolina Panthers team in week 2 of the season. They should be able to put a lot of pressure on the Patriots with their defensive line being considerably better than the Patriots offensive line. That is going to be a huge key because they can't let Brady have opportunities and they need to get sacks to stop some Patriots possessions.
The Patriots though have been fantastic lately, winning their last 6 games in a row after the Monday Night debacle against the Kansas City Chiefs to bring their overall record to 8-2. During that stretch they have averaged 40.5 points per game offensively and only allowing 21.3 points per game. The health of Rob Gronkowski and emergence of Brandon LaFell on the outside has been especially important for the Patriots as they have had some major injuries on the defensive side of the ball and needed to rely on their offense.
This game is probably going to be much more like the Thursday Night contest earlier in the year for the Patriots, as the Lions defense is one of the better ones they have seen, and they struggled to put away the Jets, winning by a final of 27-25. But the Lions are looking for a nice bounce back win after they had struggled so much to move the ball last week against the Cardinals. The other thing to consider is that the Patriots have been 6-0 since they got Brandon Browner back from suspension, and with him and Revis trying to bottle up Johnson and Tate, it should be a highly entertaining contest. This writer predicts that the Patriots will continue their winning streak at home this week, winning by a final score of Patriots 28, Lions 23.