Bears face daunting turnaround in preparing for Lions

Allen Park — Eighty-eight hours. 

That's the time between kickoffs of the Chicago Bears' Sunday night game this past weekend and this Thursday's Thanksgiving matchup with the Detroit Lions. As it turns out, it's the shortest turnaround between games in modern NFL history. 

"It’s a unique situation to have that night game and then right into an early day game, but it is what it is," Bears coach Matt Nagy said. "Our guys, once we knew it, we prepped them on what our game plan is as far as making sure they’re mentally and physically strong and how they have to treat it."

The Bears weren't original scheduled to play on prime time. The league flexed the game with the Vikings, replacing the originally scheduled matchup between the Jaguars and Steelers. 

Nagy attempted to take a positive angle, noting things have to be going well for his team to be moved to a prime-time slot in the middle of the season, but also said he hoped the league would reevaluate the situation, given the difficulty of playing two games that close together.

More: Bears' Trubisky ailing heading into game vs. Lions

"I do think it should be taken into consideration," Nagy said. "Regardless of what the situation is after the flex game, when we get flexed, that’s a good thing. You want that as a team. But when you have a short week like we (have) in this situation, I think that they’ll look into that moving forward and take that into consideration.”

Four other teams have played on Thanksgiving four days after appearing on Sunday Night Football — Denver in 2006, Washington in 2016 and Dallas in 2014 and 2017. Despite all four of those games starting later in the afternoon than the 12:30 p.m. kickoff for the Lions and Bears, those teams went 0-4 on Thanksgiving. 

jdrogers@detroitnews.com

Twitter: @justin_rogers