Well… This Thanksgiving Day game certainly didn’t go the way that members of the Lions fans would have wished. The game certainly didn’t start well as our divisional rival, the Greenbay Packers, scored 20 pts in the first quarter of the game and were leading 23 to 6 going into halftime.
Towards the end of the game, it seemed like the Lions might have been able to complete the comeback and pull off the win, but sadly just couldn’t pull it together. Unfortunately, this means that it’s now seven years in a row that the Detroit Lions have lost during their Thanksgiving Day game, with their last win coming in 2016.
However, there was something much larger at play during this Thanksgiving Day game that should have been an omen to us all about the Lions’ on-field performance: the moon.
It turns out that dating back to 1966 our Detroit Lions were 0-12 on Thanksgiving Day games in the presence of a waxing gibbous moon!
Now, we know what you’re probably thinking, how did the moon make the Lions lose this game? The truth is, we really have no idea, but 0-13 during waxing gibbous moon phases doesn’t feel like a coincidence! We’re not above resorting to things like blaming astrology for the Lions losing this game, but it seems like the moon has been dominating Detroit all this time and so far we haven’t been able to prove the moon wrong.
Fortunately, the next waxing gibbous moon phase that falls on Thanksgiving Day won’t be until 2031, so by the time that happens, our Lions should be ready to take on the moon!
What is a waxing gibbous moon?
The moon has eight phases that the moon cycles through:
- 🌑 New
- 🌒 Waxing Crescent
- 🌓 First Quarter
- 🌔 Waxing Gibbous
- 🌕 Full
- 🌖 Waning Gibbous
- 🌗 Third Quarter
- 🌘 Waning Crescent
This cycle happens because of the way the Earth and Moon move through space, the moon doesn’t change shape we just simply get a different view. In a typical month, the moon will go through a full cycle of phases at least once because the full cycle takes on average around 29.5 days. This is also why sometimes there is more than one full moon in one month, which is a rare occasion called a blue moon.
Fortunately, the Lions don’t seem to be having trouble winning games during other moon phases or even during waxing gibbous moons when it isn’t Thanksgiving.