As the winter thickens and temperatures drop, the NFL season only heats up. Playoff season is among us and we have a full slate of Wildcard games just waiting to be broken down. When looking at this slate, there is one game that every football fan around the world should have their eyes on. The sixth-seeded, 10–7 Los Angeles Rams will be traveling to Detroit to take on the third-seeded, 12–5 Lions on Sunday, January 14, 2024. This means that Los Angeles quarterback Matthew Stafford will be making his first appearance in Detroit since the franchise traded him away in January 2021, along with quarterback Jared Goff facing off against his former Los Angeles Rams after being involved in the same trade.
Matthew Stafford played twelve seasons with the Detroit Lions before the trade and he was everything the city could have wished for. Although Detroit didn’t find much success during his tenure, he was a major bright spot. The city lived and died by Matthew Stafford, he was the heart and soul of the Lions. Sadly, his playoff success only began once he was shipped off to the City of Angels where he won his first and only Super Bowl topping the Cincinnati Bengals 23–20 in the 2021-22 season. This was a big step up for Stafford as Detroit still boasts by far the longest active streak without a playoff win which has been standing since January 1992.
After a historic season in Detroit terms, the Lions will be looking to snap this streak on Sunday. The Lions are on a hunt and they’re hungrier than they’ve ever been. Jared Goff has some extra incentive to win this game as he will be walking out to face the team that he led to an NFC Championship and Super Bowl appearance but eventually wrote him off to upgrade and trade for Stafford. This Lions team won the NFC North Divisional Title in the regular season, marking the first time they have completed this achievement since 1993, which means that Ford Field will host its very first playoff game since that year. The Detroit home crowd will be nothing but rocking in this playoff environment.
Lions head coach Dan Campbell seems to have begun preparing this team for this very moment since he walked into the Lions’ facility for the first time in 2021. He is an extremely traditional football coach who has developed an extremely gritty team. When hired by the Lions in his introductory press conference, he said, “This team is going to take on the identity of this city, and the city has been down but it found a way to get up. It has found a way to overcome adversity. All right … So this team is going to be built up—we’re going to kick you in the teeth, and when you punch us back, we’re going to smile at you. When you knock us down, we’re going to get up and on the way up we’re going to bite the kneecap off. Then we’re going to stand up, then it’s going to take two more shots to knock us down, and on the way up we’re going to take your other kneecap. When we get up, it’ll take three shots to get us down. Before long, we will be the last ones standing.”
Dan Campbell truly meant this when he said it, as he lives by the ground-and-pound run-first offense led by running backs Jahmyr Gibbs and David Montgomery. The Lions rank fifth amongst NFL teams in total rushing yards. They also have an extremely intense defensive line led by defensive end Aidan Hutchinson who will slow the opposition’s run game down and throw their quarterback to the ground.
On the other side of things, the Los Angeles Rams are led by play-calling maestro and offensive genius Sean McVay. He is the living definition of a modern football coach. He takes his skill position players and expands them, utilizing them in every way possible. His latest two projects that display this are rookie Puka Nacua and second-year breakout star Kyren Williams. Puka was drafted in the fifth round out of BYU. He was overlooked by many NFL scouts and teams due to his poor combine performance. After getting picked late and ultimately landing in Los Angeles, he simply made history. He finished his rookie season with a hundred and five receptions for 1486 yards and six touchdowns. His 1486-yard season broke the rookie receiving yard record that originally belonged to Bill Groman and had stood for a whopping sixty-four years.
His second skill position project this year also dropped to the fifth round. Kyren Williams was selected by the Rams out of the prestigious Notre Dame University. He was always looked at as a tough running back but not much more than that. Referring to him leading up to the draft, NFL Draft Analyst Mel Kiper said, “He’s not going to be dynamic, but he’ll block.”
However, Kyren has been absolutely nothing but dynamic and an overall game-changer for the Los Angeles Rams this year. He went for 1144 yards with twelve touchdowns on the ground and two hundred and six yards with three touchdowns through the air game. The most amazing part about his stat line is that he achieved it playing only thirteen out of the seventeen regular season games (missing four due to injury).
If the Los Angeles Rams go on to win this game it will be due to the sheer brainpower of Sean McVay and his skill group executing on an elite level. This has been in full display during their hot streak down the stretch of the regular season where they have managed to win seven of their last eight games. They’re hot and they’re healthy and that’s the formula to win during the playoffs. Although, the question is, will it truly be enough?
Will Matthew Stafford and the Los Angeles Rams march into Detroit and spoil their hopes of winning a playoff game? Will they spoil their hope of showing Stafford who the new Detroit Lions are? Will Stafford show how he is better off in Los Angeles? No, is my simple answer. It will be a close game and it’ll come down to the stretch and key plays throughout the contest but, I ultimately guarantee the city of Detroit their first playoff win since 1992. They will beat the Los Angeles Rams and snap the skid.