After Sunday night’s home playoff win over Matthew Stafford and the Los Angeles Rams, Lions defensive back C.J. Gardner-Johnson said that the fans at Ford Field weren’t loud enough.
“It’s gonna be even louder next week,” he said while standing at his locker after the game. Then he said: “I’m only sayin’ that for motivational purposes.”
Ford Field was, in fact, as loud as it’s been all week, as the Lions hosted and won a home playoff game for the first time in more than 30 years, beating the Rams 24-23 and advancing to the second round of the playoffs.
This week, the Lions will face a Tampa Bay Buccaneers team fresh off a win against the reigning NFC Champion Philadelphia Eagles, 32-9 in Tampa Bay.
Tampa Bay finished the season 9-8, having won the NFC South Division Title and are the No. 4 seed in the conference. Detroit, the No. 2 seed in the NFC, watched Monday as the Bucs beat the Eagles.
A formidable opponent, Tampa Bay has won six of its last seven games including the win over Philadelphia. And they’ve been so successful with their defense. Over that seven-game stretch, the Bucs have only allowed 15 points per contest, and they’ve allowed less than 325 yards of offense by their opponents in six of those seven games. By contrast, the Lions average 27 points per game and ranked third in the league with 395 yards of offense per game.
This sets the scene for a Detroit first, as the Lions will host two home playoff games in the same postseason for the first time in franchise history.
“I’ll just start with – look, the fans, again, [Sunday], I can’t stress enough how awesome that was. And really happy for everybody here. I know that’s been a long time coming, and man it felt good to deliver that, but we’re not done,” Lions Head Coach Dan Campbell said Monday after the win.
The game is slated to kick off at 3 p.m. on Sunday, Jan. 21, and it will serve as a rematch from the Week 6 contest between the Lions and Bucs, where Detroit’s dominant defense helped propel them to a 20-6 win.
In that game, the Buccaneers went without a touchdown and managed just two field goals on the day. Quarterback Baker Mayfield was 19-of-37 passing for 206 yards with no touchdowns, one interception, and Detroit’s stifling run defense held Tampa Bay to just 46 yards on 16 carries.
Lions quarterback Jared Goff, who was the star of the Lions opening-round playoff win, was 30-of-44 passing for 353 yards – his highest passing total on the season – with two touchdowns and no interceptions.
There’s no doubt that Ford Field will again be a raucous environment, one that’s forced Lions opponents into 20 timeouts, false starts, or offsides penalties on the season while making it hard for visiting teams to concentrate before the snap.
“I think it was on par with what I expected. And there again, it was probably the best I’ve ever been a part of,” Campbell said of the crowd. “I mean it was – that was – so much of it was the fact that the thing started an hour before the game and it was just four hours of nonstop barrage of the fans just going off and the chants for Goff and it was just – what a special, special environment. I mean for anybody that was there, you’ll never forget that. You will never – for the rest of your life, that will be something you’re talking about. That was special.”
If the Lions are able to beat the Buccaneers Sunday, they will face the winner of the San Franciso-Green Bay game. A San Francisco win would mean the Lions will travel to the Bay for an NFC title showdown. A Green Bay win would mean that the Lions would host an unprecedented third home playoff game in one season, but this time it would be for the NFC Championship.
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