Saturday Evening Soccer, is there something higher (okay, possibly Sunday Evening Soccer, and even Monday Evening Soccer – we received’t point out Thursday). The Divisional Spherical continues tonight with a showdown between Jared Goff and Jayden Daniels, two quarterbacks with main among the most high-powered offenses within the league.
Saturday Evening Soccer Tonight
Detroit’s protection is banged up however nonetheless manages to be aggressive. When the one seed was on the road, they held the Minnesota Vikings to simply 9 factors. In accordance with TruMedia, this was their lowest-scoring sport this season and was 16.4 factors beneath their common. They managed this with out forcing a single turnover.
In video games with out a turnover, the Commanders are 6-2 and common 22.63 factors per sport. Not a profitable recipe for the Lions’ protection. Fortunately for Detroit, they rank seventh in defensive EPA (anticipated factors added) gained from turnovers this season, exhibiting that they’re above common at forcing them.
The Lions are fifteenth in defensive EPA in opposition to scrambles however twenty seventh in EPA in opposition to designed quarterback runs. Whereas Jayden Daniels won’t have as a lot success scrambling as he did in opposition to the Tampa Bay Buccaneers final week, the Commanders ought to undoubtedly draw up some designed runs for him. They rank third within the league in EPA on quarterback runs this season, behind solely the Buffalo Payments and Kansas Metropolis Chiefs.
The Commanders rank twenty ninth in defensive EPA in man protection versus twenty second in zone protection. Whereas the Lions rank sixth offensively in opposition to zone and first by a rustic mile in opposition to man. The Commanders run man protection at a few league-average charge however ought to undoubtedly take into account firming this down in opposition to the Lions.
The query of this sport can be whether or not or not the Commanders have the offensive willpower to maintain up with the Lions. We all know that neither protection is provided to make stops however Detroit’s offensive benefit is significantly stronger than Washington’s. This exacerbates in excessive leverage conditions as effectively.
The Commanders’ protection ranks 18th, nineteenth, and twenty sixth in late down, seemingly move, and trailing conditions this season. Evaluating this to the Lions’ offense which ranks fourth with a lead, fifth in seemingly move conditions, and first on late downs, we see that the protection may very well be in loads of bother in the event that they get down early.
To stop this, the Commanders might want to come out of the gates swinging. Sadly, this has not been the case for the Commanders this season. They rank nineteenth in offensive EPA on scripted performs. There have solely been two traces this season increased than 55.5 factors. Lions versus Vikings in Week 18 and Lions vs Payments in Week 15. One sport hit the over and the opposite the below.
What Time Is Saturday Evening Soccer Tonight?
Date: Jan. 18, 2025
Begin time: 8:00 p.m. ET
TV Channel and Reside Stream for Saturday Evening Soccer
Channel: FOX
Reside Streams: HULU
Washington Stats and Insights
For the reason that begin of 2022, the Lions have a 73.8% win share in opposition to groups with out a true weapon of a runner below middle and a 54.5% mark when going through such an asset – Jayden Daniels actually falls into that second bucket of QB.
On Sunday night time, Daniels accomplished 58.3% of his pressured passes with two scores and 0 interceptions (common season: 46.4% full with 1.6 touchdowns-per-interception).
The Commanders scored on 62.5% of their drives within the Wild Card Spherical and are close to unstoppable when having success even near that degree (13-2 when scoring on over one-third of their offensive possessions).
Washington posted a 66.7 Def+ grade on Sunday night time, their fourth-worst effort of the season. That stated, two of these 4 situations have come in opposition to the Buccaneers, making that doubtlessly a tricky matchup greater than one thing to concern transferring into the Divisional Spherical.
Detroit ranks fourth in blitz charge (33.7%) however twenty first in stress charge when blitzing this season (39.2%). Thrice this season in a Jayden Daniels sport has Washington seen an opponent blitz over 33% of the time and get stress below 40% of the time when bringing the warmth – his common QB+ in these video games is 82.7 (up from 77.4 in all different video games).
Lions Stats and Insights
The Lions scored 41 factors in opposition to the Chargers final season coming off their bye. They hung 47 on the Cowboys this season and are actually coming off one other bye week.
Jared Goff completed the season with a 93.2 grade in our QB+ metric, the Eleventh-best mark in our six years of monitoring (second greatest this season, trailing Lamar Jackson).
The Lions ranked third in fourth down conversions throughout the common season (22) and tied for seventh in fourth down conversion charge (66.7%).
Detroit’s offense will get the eye, however their protection, for the season, ranked seventh in turnover charge and crimson zone effectivity.
Betting: The Lions have lined 70% of their video games since Dan Campbell took over (49-21-1), simply one of the best mark within the league (the Bengals at 61.6% are the one different workforce at 58%).
Since 2022, the Lions are 25-1 when profitable the turnover battle, 13-15 when not (this contains video games with a 0 differential).
The Lions had been the one unbeaten workforce within the NFC when scoring first (7-0) and are 24-3 of their 27 video games when scoring first.
