The Divisional round of the NFL Playoffs continues on Sunday evening when we find out who will head to face the San Francisco 49ers in the NFC Championship game next week when the Detroit Lions host the Tampa Bay Buccaneers.
The Lions edged out the Los Angeles Rams last week while the Buccaneers demolished the Philadelphia Eagles but the Bucs will have to win out on the road if they are going to make it back to the Super Bowl.
Detroit Lions
The Detroit Lions could have been forgiven for allowing the occasion and the razzmatazz that went with it last week for getting the better of them. There are some young players in their team and their clash with the Los Angeles Rams was pretty high profile, not least because it had been so long since Detroit had played in a postseason match let alone host one. There was no need to worry though because they coped perfectly and came out with the win.
The big thing for the Lions in this match is they go into it knowing they have already been away to the Bucs and won this season. On that occasion Jared Goff passed his way to victory and against a defence which has struggled against the pass all season you would imagine that will be the route that they attempt to take this time around. The other positive for Detroit is their defence is really starting to play to a high level and that is never a bad thing at this time of year.
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Tampa Bay Buccaneers
It is never easy when a home side take on a team with a better record in the playoffs because all sorts of questions are asked about the legitimacy of it all but the fact that they absolutely dominated the Philadelphia Eagles would have quietened that talk down and also would have given them a lot of confidence going into this match because they haven’t been their best this term, but as is so often the case they only have to play their best cricket from here on in.
The Tampa Bay defence has started to show up in recent weeks. They can still work on their efforts against the pass but when the Eagles struggled to run on them then you know that side of the ball is legit. The other thing that has happened in recent weeks is their offense has begun to show up with Baker Mayfield getting something going with Mike Evans. If the offense can continue to flourish then you would imagine there is enough in the Bucs’ defence to run the Lions close.
Betting
This is one of those matches I hate betting on in that I like the home team Detroit Lions to win but they are being asked to cover six points, which if this was in the middle of the regular season I would have no problem taking it, but at this stage of the campaign when it is all about winning and moving onto next week I’m less keen. I don’t really want to back the Tampa Bay Buccaneers because if Detroit fancy the job they could gash this Bucs D through the air.
With that in mind, I will take the receiving yards of a wide receiver for the Lions and rather than focus on St Brown I’m going to side with the second string of Josh Reynolds who caught five balls for 80 yards against the Rams last week. The Rams secondary is so much better than the Tampa Bay one as evidenced earlier in the season when Detroit went to Tampa Bay and Reynolds caught three passes for 50 yards. He has a receiving line of 39.5 in this one, a line he has covered in 10 of his 18 matches this season. With Sam Laporta a little banged up Reynolds, who stretches the field so might only need two catches to cover this line, could be the one to be with.
Tips
Back J.Reynolds – Over 39.5 receiving yards for a 3/10 stake at 1.90 with Coral
