The most lopsided Thanksgiving day drubbing of the 21st century still belongs to the Tennessee Titans.

The Titans haven’t played on the Thanksgiving holiday since 2008, when one of the best teams in Titans history visited Ford Field to face a hapless Detroit Lions team that went on to finish their year with an 0-16 record. Led by 100-yard rushing performances from both Chris Johnson and LenDale White, the Titans went up to Detroit and improved to 11-1 with a 47-10 trouncing. The 37-point win stands as the widest margin of victory in any NFL Thanksgiving game in the last 40 years, and the fourth-biggest Thanksgiving day win since the 1970 AFL-NFL merger.

This was exactly the kind of outcome the Titans expected.

“Not to knock them, but we expected to win this game,” White said postgame. “There was no way coming into this game that we thought we were going to lose. We just came out swinging and we gave them the first punch. After that, they fell out.”

“This is what we needed,” linebacker Keith Bulluck added. “I didn’t think it would be this easy, but you could tell early on everybody’s minds were in the game.”

Here’s how lopsided this game was: The Titans outgained Detroit by 302 yards, the largest yardage disparity in the Titans favor in any game since moving to Tennessee, and the third-largest disparity on any Thanksgiving day game in history. And this came on a day where the Titans only completed 12 passes; there are only three other games in the 21st century where a team outgained its opponent this decisively with such a little passing presence.

The “Smash and Dash” era of Titans football was in full effect. Johnson and White combined for 231 rush yards, and the Titans broke free for six carries that gained 20 or more yards. The defense carried the load from there, logging four sacks, nine quarterback hits, seven tackles for loss, six pass breakups, three forced fumbles and a pick-six.

“They basically say we’re going to line up and do this and if you can stop it, great,” Lions linebacker Ryan Nece said from the locker room. “If you can’t, then we’re going to gash you.”

Unable to pick a single MVP, the CBS broadcast awarded its “All-Iron Award” to four Titans: Johnson, White, center Kevin Mawae and defensive tackle Albert Haynesworth. Players worthy of mention who didn’t receive the honor included cornerback Nick Harper (four tackles, three pass breakups), defensive lineman Dave Ball (two tackles, one sack, pick-six), return man Chris Carr (95 kick return yards plus 45 punt return yards) and kicker Rob Bironas (4-for-4 with all coming from longer than 40 yards).

The game stood as the most lopsided loss of the Lions’ 0-16 season, which was the first in NFL history. It was also the most dominant victory in the Titans’ 13-3 campaign, which earned a No. 1 seed in the AFC postseason.

The Lions clearly took notice of how dominant that Titans defense was; just two months later Detroit hired Titans defensive coordinator Jim Schwartz as its next coach and tasked him with turning around a winless squad.

And the NFL took notice of how lopsided the game was. Commissioner Roger Goodell went as far as to suggest the topic of whether Detroit would lose its annual Thanksgiving game host role would be brought up at the ensuing owner’s meetings. That never happened, even as this 2008 game sat in the middle of an embarrassing streak where the Lions lost nine straight on turkey day, a streak that extended through 2012.

“We wanted to come out here early, set the tempo and win the battle in the trenches on both sides of the ball,” Mawae said in 2008, recapping what worked for the Titans. “We struck quick. We struck fast. We didn’t want to sit there and have to trade blows for a quarter, quarter and a half.”

Nick Suss is the Titans beat writer for The Tennessean. Contact Nick at  nsuss@gannett.com. Follow Nick on X @nicksuss. Subscribe to the Talkin’ Titans newsletter for updates sent directly to your inbox.