Piff Perkins
Veteran
I'm considering putting money on the Lions. Only watched the Lions on RedZone, Prime Time (including playoff) games.
Schematically, if Deebo plays, how will the Lions mitigate the 49er's pass offense?
What's the Lions answer for:
-Kittle
-Ayuik
-CmC - running and passing
Honestly if Deebo plays I don't see him finishing the game. He got hurt twice last week, which suggests to me he came in banged up and re-aggravated it. It'll happen again when he gets popped on Sunday.
Lions entire defense is built around stopping the run. Does that mean they magically stop CMC and a great Niners o-line? No but this defense doesn't give up 100 yards to any RB. If the Lions are able to stop the run they have a shot. Both the Niners and Lions are built to sustain and hold leads. Neither team is good at come backs. They want to pound the ball, make explosive plays in the passing game, and run out the clock. Niners are clearly the better team but given how similar they are in ideology I think we have a shot.
Niners have a great tackle in Trent Williams but the other one isn't great. I think Aiden Hutchinson can rattle Purdy, and our DBs will be blitzing him. Will we give up huge plays to Ayuik and Kittle? Yea. But we're been giving up those plays for the last 5 games and have held teams under 25 points (including explosive offenses from Dallas, LA, and Tampa).
I'm not confident going into this game but I feel we have a shot. Green Bay showed us the blueprint.