The Green Bay Packers suffered a narrow defeat on Thursday night, falling to the Detroit Lions 34-31 in a contest that changed hands five times in the second half. The loss dropped Matt LaFleur’s club to 9-4, three wins behind the 12-1 Lions, effectively relegating them to the Wild Card race.

After being defeated by the Lions that season, LaFleur informed his club that the goal was now to return to Detroit for a postseason grudge match.

“As I told our team, we must earn the right to potentially come back here,” LaFleur said on the team’s official website. “It won’t be easy and we’ll have to work hard, but I’m confident our group is resilient.”

“They’re going to continue to fight and push each other to get better and stay connected because I think we have a pretty good football team.”

The Packers gave the one-loss Lions everything they could handle, with Jordan Love picking up dimes against an injury-riddled defense and Josh Jacobs scoring three touchdowns. However, the defense, which allowed 19.6 points per game to all non-Detroit opponents but allowed 29.0 points to the Lions in two games, couldn’t get off the field late.

Green Bay has a 7-2 record in its last nine games, with both losses coming against Detroit. Packers players are confident they could get to a potential third game in January.

“We will definitely be back here and look forward to playing them again,” defensive lineman Kenny Clark said. “But it’s tough, it’s a tough defeat. We have to get better from here, and we will get better from here.”

The Packers proved they have the guts to compete with the NFL’s top clubs and nearly won an away game despite missing a few key starters. The next step is to overcome the “just shy” hurdle. All four of the Packers’ losses in 2024 came against teams with more than 10 wins.

For LaFleur, it was the slow start, falling behind 10-0 after a mistake by Christian Watson, that ultimately brought down the pack.

“We just started slow, especially on the offensive side of the ball,” LaFleur said. “I mean, we punt, punt, fumble and then score a touchdown. You know, it’s just a handful of plays that separate these types of games.”

At 9-4, Green Bay may be out of the division race (Next Gen Stats puts their current odds of winning the NFC North at 2 percent), but barring complete disaster, they’ll be in contention in January ( 97) percent chance of making the playoffs, per NGS). From then on, similar to a year ago, they have the opportunity to take to the streets and play spoiler.