Saturday Night Football, is there anything better (okay, maybe Sunday Night Football, or even Monday Night Football – we won’t mention Thursday). The Divisional Round continues tonight with a showdown between Jared Goff and Jayden Daniels, two quarterbacks with leading some of the most high-powered offenses in the league.
Saturday Night Football Tonight
- Teams: Washington Commanders vs. Detroit Lions
- Location: Ford Field, Detroit
Detroit’s defense is banged up but still manages to be competitive. When the one seed was on the line, they held the Minnesota Vikings to just nine points. According to TruMedia, this was their lowest-scoring game this season and was 16.4 points below their average. They managed this without forcing a single turnover.
In games without a turnover, the Commanders are 6-2 and average 22.63 points per game. Not a winning recipe for the Lions’ defense. Luckily for Detroit, they rank seventh in defensive EPA (expected points added) gained from turnovers this season, showing that they are above average at forcing them.
The Lions are 15th in defensive EPA against scrambles but 27th in EPA against designed quarterback runs. While Jayden Daniels might not have as much success scrambling as he did against the Tampa Bay Buccaneers last week, the Commanders should definitely draw up some designed runs for him. They rank third in the league in EPA on quarterback runs this season, behind only the Buffalo Bills and Kansas City Chiefs.
The Commanders rank 29th in defensive EPA in man coverage versus 22nd in zone coverage. While the Lions rank sixth offensively against zone and first by a country mile against man. The Commanders run man coverage at about a league-average rate but should definitely consider toning this down against the Lions.
The question of this game will be whether or not the Commanders have the offensive willpower to keep up with the Lions. We know that neither defense is equipped to make stops but Detroit’s offensive advantage is considerably more potent than Washington’s. This exacerbates in high leverage situations as well.
The Commanders’ defense ranks 18th, 19th, and 26th in late down, likely pass, and trailing situations this season. Comparing this to the Lions’ offense which ranks fourth with a lead, fifth in likely pass situations, and first on late downs, we see that the defense could be in a lot of trouble if they get down early.
To prevent this, the Commanders will need to come out of the gates swinging. Unfortunately, this has not been the case for the Commanders this season. They rank 19th in offensive EPA on scripted plays. There have only been two lines this season higher than 55.5 points. Lions versus Vikings in Week 18 and Lions vs Bills in Week 15. One game hit the over and the other the under.
What Time Is Saturday Night Football Tonight?
- Date: Jan. 18, 2025
- Start time: 8:00 p.m. ET
TV Channel and Live Stream for Saturday Night Football
- Channel: FOX
- Live Streams: HULU
Washington Stats and Insights
Since the start of 2022, the Lions have a 73.8% win percentage against teams without a true weapon of a runner under center and a 54.5% mark when facing such an asset – Jayden Daniels certainly falls into that second bucket of QB.
On Sunday night, Daniels completed 58.3% of his pressured passes with two scores and zero interceptions (regular season: 46.4% complete with 1.6 touchdowns-per-interception).
The Commanders scored on 62.5% of their drives in the Wild Card Round and are near unstoppable when having success even close to that level (13-2 when scoring on over one-third of their offensive possessions).
Washington posted a 66.7 Def+ grade on Sunday night, their fourth-worst effort of the season. That said, two of those four instances have come against the Buccaneers, making that potentially a tough matchup more than something to fear moving into the Divisional Round.
Detroit ranks fourth in blitz rate (33.7%) but 21st in pressure rate when blitzing this season (39.2%). Three times this season in a Jayden Daniels game has Washington seen an opponent blitz over 33% of the time and get pressure under 40% of the time when bringing the heat – his average QB+ in those games is 82.7 (up from 77.4 in all other games).
Lions Stats and Insights
The Lions scored 41 points against the Chargers last season coming off their bye. They hung 47 on the Cowboys this season and are now coming off another bye week.
Jared Goff finished the season with a 93.2 grade in our QB+ metric, the 11th-best mark in our six years of tracking (second best this season, trailing Lamar Jackson).
The Lions ranked third in fourth down conversions during the regular season (22) and tied for 7th in fourth down conversion rate (66.7%).
Detroit’s offense gets the attention, but their defense, for the season, ranked seventh in turnover rate and red zone efficiency.
Betting: The Lions have covered 70% of their games since Dan Campbell took over (49-21-1), easily the best mark in the league (the Bengals at 61.6% are the only other team at 58%).
Since 2022, the Lions are 25-1 when winning the turnover battle, 13-15 when not (this includes games with a 0 differential).
The Lions were the only unbeaten team in the NFC when scoring first (7-0) and are 24-3 in their 27 games when scoring first.