The Worksheet, a comprehensive fantasy football preview by Rich Hribar, breaks down everything you need to know about the Week 4 matchup between the Packers and Lions on Thursday night.
Find a breakdown of every Week 4 NFL game in our Worksheet Hub.
| Detroit | Rank | @ | Green Bay | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| -1.5 | Spread | 1.5 | ||
| 23.5 | Implied Total | 22.0 | ||
| 24.0 | 12 | Points/Gm | 26.7 | 8 |
| 21.0 | 15 | Points All./Gm | 20.7 | 13 |
| 66.0 | 14 | Plays/Gm | 59.3 | 25 |
| 64.7 | 19 | Opp. Plays/Gm | 69.3 | 27 |
| 5.8 | 7 | Off. Yards/Play | 5.0 | 16 |
| 4.6 | 6 | Def. Yards/Play | 4.9 | 11 |
| 46.46% | 10 | Rush% | 44.38% | 11 |
| 53.54% | 23 | Pass% | 55.62% | 22 |
| 35.05% | 4 | Opp. Rush % | 46.15% | 25 |
| 64.95% | 29 | Opp. Pass % | 53.85% | 8 |
- The Lions are 3-1 straight up and against the spread against Green Bay under Dan Campbell including three straight wins.
- Detroit has scored a touchdown on 25.8% of their drives that have started on their side of the field, sixth in the league.
- Green Bay has scored a touchdown on 24.1% of their drives that have started on their side of the field, ninth in the league.
- Opponents against Green Bay are averaging 6.5 plays per drive, the fourth-most in the league.
- The Lions are averaging 7.6 yards per passing play, second in the league behind Miami (10.4).
- 58.1% of the Green Bay set of downs have reached third down, 28th in the NFL. The league average is 48.1%.
- 33.8% of the Green Bay set of downs have resulted in needing a third and long (seven or more yards), the highest rate in the league.
- Just 22.1% of the rushing attempts against Detroit have gained five or more yards, the lowest rate in the league.
Trust = spike production for that player
Quarterback
Jared Goff: Goff had a largely nondescript passing game for fantasy Sunday against Atlanta, completing 22-of-33 passes for 243 yards with a touchdown and an interception.
But by adding his first rushing touchdown since Week 14 of the 2022 season, Goff was able to manage a QB14 scoring week (18.1 points).
Going on the road in a short week will once again bring Goff’s wonky splits.
In nine road games since the start of last season, Goff has just seven total passing touchdowns. Since joining the Lions in 2021, Goff has just 15 passing touchdowns on the road.
On the road with the Lions, Goff has had just one QB1 scoring week (one week higher than QB15 in fact), including Week 1 of this season, which was his lowest-scoring game over the opening three weeks.
A lot of home/road splits are largely noise and more components of context go into creating them, but this also is not a glowing spot to target a spike week.
The Packers have not been challenged to open this season through the air in facing Justin Fields, Desmond Ridder, and the combination of Derek Carr and Jameis Winston, but they also have not allowed Goff to finish higher than QB12 in any of his four starts in this division matchup.
That includes QB19 (11.4 points) and QB22 (9.5 points) weeks a year ago when these teams linked up.
Goff is more of a floor-based QB2 this week.
Jordan Love: Love is approaching Aaron Paul from Breaking Bad meme status because he just keeps getting there as a QB1 for fantasy despite lackluster passing efficiency.
Despite passing for just 5.9 yards per pass attempt, completing 50.0% of his passes, and throwing just one touchdown pass with an interception on Sunday against the Saints, Love added 39 yards and a touchdown on the ground and managed to end the week as QB6 (24.3 points).
Love is one of just two quarterbacks (Justin Herbert being the other) to score 20 or more fantasy points in all three games to open the season.
He keeps getting away with it, but Love still has not completed 60% of his passes in any game yet this season.
Detroit has mixed things up this season defensively. After a consistent blitz-heavy approach in 2022, Aaron Glenn has varied things up this year.
Detroit blitzed Patrick Mahomes just 8.9% of the time (29th) in Week 1.
They then dialed up a blitz on 31.8% of Week 2 dropbacks against Geno Smith (eighth) before scaling back down to a 17.4% blitz rate (25th) this past week against Desmond Ridder.
Love has only completed 43.3% of his attempts (13-of-30) against the blitz through three weeks, ahead of only Anthony Richardson (38.5%) and Joe Burrow (37.5%).
The balloon is going to pop at some stage unless Love has a spike in efficiency as a passer. We still do not know if he will get Christian Watson and Aaron Jones back this week to boost those odds, leaving him as a volatile QB2.
Running Back
Lions RBs: As expected, Jahmyr Gibbs took a step forward with David Montgomery sidelined on Sunday.
Gibbs played a season-high 60% of the snaps, turning 18 touches into 82 yards.
That said, we are three weeks into the season and Gibbs has been at best a back-end RB2 each of the past two weeks.
Gibbs did handle 18-of-26 backfield touches, including 17 carries for 80 of his yards. Detroit did not ask him to serve as a body in protection (one true pass-blocking snap) and he did not handle any of the team carries needing 1-3 yards, but the one surprising aspect was that he only had one catch for two yards.
We now have two games in which the backfield was just not a part of the passing game for Detroit.
If there was a spot for that to change, opposing teams have targeted their running backs 26.3% of the time so far against Green Bay, which is the second-highest rate in the league.
On those targets, the Packers are 27th in the league in receiving points allowed per game to running backs (11.6).
On the ground, the Packers are allowing 4.23 YPC to running backs (21st) and have just a 56.3% success rate against those carries (26th).
We originally thought that Gibbs would have another opportunity to leas this backfield, but Montgomery is now playing on Thursday Night, which throws a wrench into this situation.
On a short week and with Montgomery coming off injury there should be a split here that can favor Gibbs (especially accounting for Green Bay's issues versus receiving backs), but it hard to bet on Gibbs getting into the end zone with Monty on the field.
I am handling Montgomery as a back on the RB2/FLEX line that is more touchdown-dependent this week and am treating Gibbs as a floor-based RB2 in full-PPR formats and a FLEX in non-PPR settings.
Packers RBs: Aaron Jones logged some practice time to close last week and made a push to play on Sunday, but Green Bay ultimately held him out.
Jones will play on Thursday in this Divisional showdown, but early word is that the Packers “will be careful with his workload”.
That casts a wide net on how many touches Jones will actually see in the game, but it is a signal that we should not anticipate a ceiling runout. He will likely need a touchdown to get there for gamers.
Jones is a volatile upside-based RB2 option.
With or without Jones, AJ Dillon is only on the radar as a FLEX for needy teams.
Over the past two weeks without Jones active, Dillon has managed just 96 yards on 27 touches.
The most damming element is that Green Bay has used him at all near the end zone. The Packers have had 20 red zone opportunities over the past two games and Dillon has received just two of them, the same amount as Patrick Taylor.
Detroit has opened the year solid against the run.
They have allowed just 2.9 YPC to running backs (fourth) with a 67.9% success rate on those carries (eighth).
Wide Receiver
Amon-Ra St. Brown: Entering Sunday with a toe injury, St. Brown was still effective and showed no limitations, catching 9-of-11 targets for 102 yards.
St. Brown was on the field for 100% of the dropbacks and received 38.7% of the team targets.
Since the start of last season, only Tyreek Hill (33.2%) and Davante Adams (30.2%) have been targeted at a higher rate per route than St. Brown (30.1%) for all wide receivers to run 200 or more routes.
St. Brown did have to work for production against Green Bay last year, posting games of 4-55-0 (nine targets) and 6-49-0 (nine targets), but we know he is a lock for target volume.
St. Brown is a floor-based WR1 in full-PPR formats and a fringe WR1 option in non-PPR formats.
