ALLEN PARK \u2013 Detroit Lions right tackle Penei Sewell did not mince words when sharing his thoughts on having to suit up twice during the holiday season this year.<\/p>\n
The Lions have already played their traditional Thanksgiving Day game this year \u2013 a tradition since 1934 \u2013 falling short against division rival Green Bay Packers, a loss that had serious implications for their quest to capture a third consecutive division title.<\/p>\n
But next Thursday, the Lions will take the field again on Christmas Day as part of Netflix\u2019s slate of NFL games when they hit the road to face the Minnesota Vikings.<\/p>\n
When talking about his Christmas traditions and how important the holiday is to him and his family, the three-time Pro Bowler did not hide that he was unhappy about playing in the game.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m going to be brutally honest. I\u2019m not happy,\u201d Sewell told MLive on Thursday. \u201cWe already have Thanksgiving. We already play on Thanksgiving, and the fact that we have to play on Christmas (and) away, is something I wouldn\u2019t want to do. So yeah, not fun, but it is what it is. It comes with the job. I\u2019m going to do it.\u201d<\/p>\n
Backing up Sewell\u2019s point, since 1966, only the Lions and Dallas Cowboys have hosted a home game on Thanksgiving Day every year as part of the league\u2019s tradition. But since 2020, the league has also scheduled a game on Christmas Day, even though Christmas is not a typical game day.<\/p>\n
For a team like the Lions, which already sacrifices family time by playing annually on Thanksgiving, the Christmas road game this year presents a different challenge. The Thanksgiving games are traditionally played early in the afternoon, allowing Lions players the opportunity to return home later that day. <\/p>\n
A Christmas game in Minnesota, however, requires extended travel and preparation, further limiting time with family during the holiday. That reality applies to Sewell, who is married and has three young children.<\/p>\n
Last year, as part of a three-year deal with Netflix to show games on Christmas Day, the league had two games on the streaming service. The matchups were the Kansas City Chiefs vs. the Pittsburgh Steelers and the Baltimore Ravens vs. the Houston Texans.<\/p>\n
This year\u2019s games will feature the Lions versus the Vikings and the Cowboys versus the Washington Commanders. <\/p>\n
Next Thursday\u2019s game will be the third time the Lions have played on Christmas. The last two times, they lost: once in 1994 when they played the Miami Dolphins away and lost 27-20, and once in 1999 at home at the Pontiac Silverdome, losing 17-7 to the Denver Broncos.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"ALLEN PARK \u2013 Detroit Lions right tackle Penei Sewell did not mince words when sharing his thoughts on…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":357410,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[63],"tags":[349,99],"class_list":{"0":"post-357409","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nfl","8":"tag-nfl","9":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/357409","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=357409"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/357409\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/357410"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=357409"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=357409"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=357409"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}