{"id":625284,"date":"2025-12-24T15:59:16","date_gmt":"2025-12-24T15:59:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/625284\/"},"modified":"2025-12-24T15:59:16","modified_gmt":"2025-12-24T15:59:16","slug":"detroit-lions-playoff-hopes-could-rest-on-shoulders-of-backup-quarterback","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/625284\/","title":{"rendered":"Detroit Lions’ playoff hopes could rest on shoulders of backup quarterback"},"content":{"rendered":"

Detroit Lions’ playoff hopes could rest on shoulders of backup quarterback<\/a> originally appeared on The Sporting News<\/a>. Add The Sporting News as a Preferred Source by clicking here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The Detroit Lions<\/a>‘ season is on the brink and they might be relying on a backup quarterback to save them.<\/p>\n

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The Lions enter Week 17 on the outside looking in when it comes to the postseason. They cannot win the division and now must grab a wild-card spot.<\/p>\n

The problem is there is only one wild-card spot not spoken for and Detroit is trailing the Green Bay Packers<\/a> for it.<\/p>\n

In order to jump the Packers over the final two weeks of the season, the Lions must run the table and need the Packers to lose their remaining games.<\/p>\n

This week, the Packers draw a matchup against the Baltimore Ravens<\/a>, another team fighting for its playoff life.<\/p>\n

However, Baltimore may not have Lamar Jackson under center for this game, as he’s dealing with a back injury that, according to NFL Network’s Ian Rapoport<\/a>, leaves his status for Saturday’s game up in the air.<\/p>\n

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For the team’s first practice of the week on Tuesday, Jackson was listed as a non-participant<\/a>, which was expected following his early exit in Week 16.<\/p>\n

It goes without saying that Jackson not playing would seriously hurt the Ravens chances of beating the Packers, which in turn is terrible news for the Lions.<\/p>\n

Who is the Ravens’ backup quarterback?<\/p>\n

If Jackson can’t go, Tyler Huntley will take the reins of the offense for Baltimore. Huntley has made one start this season, which came in Week 8.<\/p>\n

He went on to lead the Ravens to victory, 30-16, over the Chicago Bears<\/a> and played well, with Huntley completing 17-of-22 passes for 186 yards and one touchdown while adding eight carries for 53 yards.<\/p>\n

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The Lions can only hope that Huntley can recreate that performance if he gets the nod in place of an injured Jackson on Saturday.<\/p>\n

The Packers have their own injury concerns at quarterback, as both Jordan Love and Malik Willis are dealing with injuries. Love is in the concussion protocol<\/a>, while\u00a0Willis has a shoulder issue.<\/p>\n

But Love returned to practice on Tuesday, which was a step in the right direction for him, and Willis expects to be ready to go despite his shoulder injury.<\/p>\n

If this matchup does end up featuring backup versus backup, the edge goes to the Packers after what we’ve seen out of Willis since joining Green Bay.<\/p>\n

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NFL News<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Detroit Lions’ playoff hopes could rest on shoulders of backup quarterback originally appeared on The Sporting News. Add…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":625285,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2071],"tags":[117,391,146,113,2506,7,41,345,1724,895,147,4097,6,1257,4378,1762,85073],"class_list":{"0":"post-625284","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-detroit-lions","8":"tag-baltimore-ravens","9":"tag-chicago-bears","10":"tag-detroit","11":"tag-detroit-lions","12":"tag-detroitlions","13":"tag-football","14":"tag-green-bay","15":"tag-green-bay-packers","16":"tag-jordan-love","17":"tag-lamar-jackson","18":"tag-lions","19":"tag-malik-willis","20":"tag-nfl","21":"tag-quarterback","22":"tag-the-lions","23":"tag-tyler-huntley","24":"tag-wild-card-spot"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/115775377642136234","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/625284","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=625284"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/625284\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/625285"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=625284"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=625284"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=625284"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}