The rivalry between the Green Bay Packers and Detroit Lions is here and as strong as ever. It’s been a one-sided affair for a long time, but for the last two seasons both teams have been in the NFL’s upper echelon.

In fact, the rivalry appears to be going in the Lions’ favor for the first time in decades. Detroit has won five of the six games between the teams, including three in a row in Green Bay.

But Thursday’s game is at Ford Field, where the Lions last lost to the Packers on Thanksgiving. In this game, despite the relatively close 29-22 score, they were handled decisively by the Packers. Detroit will no doubt try to right the wrong, but there’s a bigger story behind it for the Lions.

Injuries have ripped through the Lions’ defensive squad. It’s so bad that Detroit has four players on its active roster who joined the team less than a week ago: Jamal Adams, Myles Adams, Jonah Williams and Kwon Alexander. Coach Dan Campbell said he wouldn’t be surprised if all four players contributed Thursday night, and in fact all four were active.

That’s because the Lions are missing a dozen players on defense, most of whom are in the starting seven. Specifically, the Lions will be without Aidan Hutchinson, Marcus Davenport, DJ Reader, Josh Paschal, Levi Onwuzurike, Alex Anzalone, Derrick Barnes and Malcolm Rodriguez. That’s a difficult injury list to overcome, but if the Lions somehow pull it off, they’ll establish themselves as NFC North favorites and maintain their spot atop the entire conference. Given that there are only four weeks of regular season football left to play, that would be a huge accomplishment.

Can they do it?

We will provide live updates from Ford Field on Thursday evening here in this post. Just come back at kickoff (around 8:15 p.m. ET) and refresh the page as the game continues. We add drive-by-drive analysis, review summaries, highlights and more.

Until kick-off!