It’s a return to Ford Field in Week 12. After a failed road trip against the defending champs in Philadelphia, the Detroit Lions get a chance to get back to winning ways against the last-place team in the NFC, the New York Giants.
At 6-4 and currently sitting just outside the NFC playoff qualifiers, the Lions desperately need a win. Beyond that, Detroit needs a complete game of complementary football, something they really haven’t provided in the last month: offense, defense and special teams all looking like championship-caliber units all in the same game.
There is no better foe left on the 7-game schedule than the Giants to facilitate that desire. New York is 2-9 and fired head coach Brian Daboll after dropping to 2-8 with a loss to the Chicago Bears. They will play this game without their three best offensive players: QB Jaxson Dart, WR Malik Nabers and RB Cam Skattebo. It’s a 1 p.m. kick in Ford Field as the Lions kick off two games in five days in dire need of winning both.
Why I think the Lions will win
Beyond the obvious disparity in the records and coaching situations, the Lions carry significant Xs and Os advantages on both sides of the ball in this game against the Giants.
Perhaps the biggest advantage comes in the run game. Detroit’s rushing offense has been inconsistent, with the interior line’s cohesion issues and the timing just not always finding its groove. The Lions have also faced some decent run defenses of late. That, alas, is not the Giants.
New York ranks 30th or worse in every run defense metric: yards per carry (5.5), yards per first-down carry (6.0), EPA per carry (.22), run success rate (48.3) and percentage of runs that gain at least 10 yards (explosive runs). Significantly lesser rushing attacks than Detroit’s Sonic and Knuckles combo have lit up the Giants. In the last five games–all losses–New York has given up an average of 175 yards per game on the ground.
The Giants also don’t force takeaways on defense. They have just one in the last five games, and a weak four interceptions for the season; just one of those has come since September ended. Some of that comes from a lack of playmakers on the back end, but it’s also a weird disconnect between pressure up front and playing the ball behind them.
There is also a disconnect between their run game and how often the Giants run on offense. Despite being a middling 19th in yards per carry (23rd since Skattebo got injured), New York runs the ball almost 30 times a game. Some of this was ex-coach Daboll trying to protect his rookie QB and control the game script. However, their line isn’t great at keeping holes open, and the combination of Tyrone Tracy and Devin Singletary just aren’t guys who break tackles or get a lot of yards after contact.
Given how well the Lions defensive front has tackled and (mostly) attacked the run, that should set up Giants QB Jameis Winston with a lot of opportunities to play some hero ball. Winston brings that, but it comes with a low efficiency and high risk factor. This is a game where the Lions EDGEs, Aidan Hutchinson and Al-Quadin Muhammad, can break out of mini-slumps in terms of production. Winston takes too many sacks, and often at the worst times for his offense.
It’s also a nice week to get starting CB D.J. Reed back in the lineup. Out since Week 4, Reed helps mitigate Detroit not having Terrion Arnold or Kerby Joseph on the back end of the defense. Then again, the primary deep threat for the New York offense isn’t a wideout, but rather TE Daniel Bellinger. The top volume receiver is WanDale Robinson, essentially New York’s version of Kalif Raymond, but the 2021 version of Raymond. There are some fairly significant parallels between this Giants offense and that initial Dan Campbell Lions team that fired OC Anthony Lynn midseason. That’s the level of talent New York offers right now.
What concerns me about the Giants?
They are 2-9, but the Giants do present some peril for the Lions. Teams that fire coaches midseason do tend to get a boost in performance. Lions fans might recall the relative bump in play from the 2020 Lions after Matt Patricia was fired and replaced with Darrell Bevell.
That’s already happened for the Giants. They stood toe-to-toe with the Packers a week ago under interim head coach Mike Kafka. In fact, New York had a decent shot at winning if not for a late Jameis Winston interception. A week earlier, in now-deposed Brian Daboll’s final game, the Giants led the Bears 20-10 with five minutes to play before collapsing late under a different backup QB, Russell Wilson.
In short, they’ve been close to beating the two teams currently ahead of the Lions in the NFC North standings in back-to-back weeks. That’s despite playing three quarterbacks and missing dynamic rookie RB Cam Skattebo, who was a serious contender for Offensive Rookie of the Year before his gruesome ankle injury in their payback loss to the Eagles.
Oh yeah, did I mention that the Giants beat the Eagles earlier in the season? Yeah, every game and every week, every matchup is different. That the Giants were able to shock the Eagles 34-17 back in Week 6 is still more than enough reason to be wary. Their other win came against another playoff aspirant with offensive line injury issues in the Los Angeles Chargers, too.
Even without Kayvon Thibodeaux, who will miss this game with a shoulder injury, the strength of the Giants is their defensive front. New York has the personnel to follow the defensive blueprint that has frustrated the Lions offense all season: quick pressure from the interior and speed from the outside without blitzing. Brian Burns is second in the NFL in sacks with 13, and he’s proven in the past to be a problem for Lions All-Pro right tackle Penei Sewell with his bend and his ability to cross the face of the tackle. Abdul Carter is playing pretty well as the No. 3 overall pick, though the production numbers might not reflect it. He figures to start in Thibodeaux’s place, and he’s dangerous.
On the inside, Dexter Lawrence and Roy Robertson-Harris are a formidable veteran pair. They keep linebacker Bobby Okereke clean, and the long-armed Okereke is perennially one of the leaders in PDs by linebackers. As we witnessed last week, that can be a real problem for Jared Goff looking over the middle.
Then there’s Jameis. Winston is an enigma, aside from being one of the most genuinely fun players in the entire league. He’s capable of flashing the skills that once made him the No. 1 overall pick in the 2015 NFL Draft–a year before Goff went No. 1. Yet he’s also too often quick to remind why he’s now a journeyman backup. Winston has thrown more cumulative INTs than TDs since Thanksgiving of 2022, and he’s also the last NFL quarterback to toss 30 INTs in a season (in Tampa Bay in 2019). Heck, he finished fourth in INTs a year ago despite only starting seven games.
But Winston never stops attacking down the field, for better or worse. For the Lions, the safeties–once again sans INT leader Kerby Joseph–will need to stay wary of the deep shot. Winston is the sort of variable who adds a touchdown to each side in my final score prediction.
Final score prediction
Early in the week, I had this game pegged as a one-sided romp for the Lions. And it still might be. It probably should be, given the Giants injuries. The Lions bounce back so well from losses under Dan Campbell, and this shouldn’t be an exception. Winston at QB instead of Dart makes the prediction a little tougher, but the 12.5-point line looks ripe for the picking.
Lions 30, Giants 13
