The coffee is flowing hard on a chilly Sunday morning. Hoping the chill doesn’t extend to the Detroit Lions in their 1 p.m. game in Baltimore against the Ravens.
This is a tough one for Dan Campbell’s Lions. It’s also the biggest challenge for John Harbaugh’s Ravens in the young season. Here’s what I’m thinking about the matchup of first-place teams with MVP candidates at quarterback.
Why I think the Lions will win
- They’re not going to be afraid of Lamar Jackson. More to the point, they won’t be surprised by his unusual speed. He’s different than Patrick Mahomes, who the Lions shut down in Week 1. Jackson is faster to top speed and more apt to take off, though he’s doing less of that in 2023. The Ravens offense is almost completely dependent on Jackson being elite. They don’t run the ball particularly well and they’re middle-of-the-pack in running after the catch. Detroit knows how to approach defending Lamar Jackson, even if they haven’t had a lot of success at it.
- Detroit’s offense will be different than what they’ve shown on game film thus far. It’s not that David Montgomery’s injury is a blessing because that’s absolutely not the truth; Montgomery is having a Pro Bowl year at RB. But the Lions offense without him and instead featuring Jahmyr Gibbs at running back AND the speed of Jameson Williams on the field, that’s a dynamic we haven’t seen. They haven’t either, and that’s an advantage for Lions OC Ben Johnson. A big game for Williams could very well be in the works. It might need to be…
- Those past nightmares against Baltimore, notably the 19-17 loss in Campbell’s first season on Justin Tucker’s record-setting field goal, are a blueprint for how not to win. Campbell has shown an underappreciated ability to adapt to past failures and not try to keep hammering a square peg into a round hole, or trying to win last week’s (or last year’s) game. I think these Lions will be prepared for the game and manage the game better than in 2021.
- Jared Goff for MVP is real. He’ll need to prove it again on Sunday. And he can!
What worries me about Baltimore
- The Ravens have played in the spotlight quite a bit over the years, a lot more than the Lions have. Detroit is learning fast and well, but there’s a time-tested element for the Ravens that shouldn’t be overlooked.
- Lamar Jackson is an MVP candidate too, and he’s doing it with a lesser supporting cast–from OL to RB to WR–than Goff is. Jackson’s completion percentage is a career-high 69.9 percent (better than Goff’s 69.5) and he does more of that down the field than he has in prior years. He will make occasional mistakes, and the Lions have to make him pay for them.
- Baltimore’s middle-of-field defense is as good as any, and it’s at all three levels. There isn’t another team that is better equipped to neutralize Goff’s mastery of the middle of the field and inside routes to Amon Ra St. Brown and Sam LaPorta than the Ravens are. They can take away the interior run without devoting extra players into the box, and that’s even more true with Montgomery and left guard Jonah Jackson out for Detroit.
- Justin Tucker is a Hall of Fame kicker with an incredible clutch gene. The Lions can’t even begin to compete in a field goal matchup against Tucker and the Ravens at home. In what I think will be a low-scoring game, Tucker’s ability to hit from 55 emphatically outshines Riley Patterson’s uneasy reliability from inside 50.
Final score prediction
I expect a low-scoring game that hinges on special teams, takeaways and capitalizing on the few mistakes by the opponents. The banged-up Lions have a good chance to pull off the road upset, but the Ravens are a difficult matchup. Baltimore happens to need the win a lot more than Detroit in terms of playoff potential, too; all four teams in the AFC North have non-losing records, while the Lions could realistically lose their next three games and remain in first place. Detroit won’t think that way; not a chance. But the Ravens’ experience here helps them eke out a hard-fought home win. Ravens 23, Lions 21.
