According to Football Outsiders’ proprietary DVOA metric (weighted for recent performance), the Lions are currently the fifth-strongest team in the NFC and eighth-strongest team in the NFL. 

Though there’s a popular perception Detroit’s only hope to make the playoffs is to catch Minnesota, and indeed the Lions have the second-strongest chance to win their division (15.7 percent) of any team not currently leading their division. 

But going into the pivotal Thanksgiving Day game, Detroit actually has a 33.7 percent chance of snagging a Wild Card berth—well behind the Carolina Panthers (58.6 percent), but right alongside the Atlanta Falcons (36.6 percent). 

Of course, these are all probabilities and generalities based on a statistical model, so almost any scenario can still happen (the Lions are given a 1.0 percent chance of getting the No.  1 seed!).  But as of right now, Detroit’s postseason odds are essentially a coin flip—at least until the Thanksgiving results flip all of this on its head. 

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