Bucs at Lions: DVOA Preview

If Lions fans ever dared to dream that this would be the season their team won its first playoff game in 32 years, then they likely dreamed it in Week 6. The Lions had finished 2022 strong, spoiling their rival Packers’ playoff push and securing their first winning season in half a decade.  They had started 2023 strong, upsetting the Super Bowl champion Chiefs in an unfriendly Arrowhead Stadium in Kansas City.  And the Lions had run roughshod over an overmatched NFC South, besting each of the Falcons, Panthers, and Bucs by two or more touchdowns in a span of four weeks.

That Bucs win seemed to confirm Detroit’s contender status, and not just in the hindsight of their Divisional Round rematch.  Without top rookie running back pick Jahmyr Gibbs and quickly down his backfield teammate David Montgomery as well, the Lions demonstrated their balance. Jared Goff threw for a season-high 353 yards and two touchdowns.  Their No. 1 DVOA run defense held the Bucs to 46 yards on 16 carries.  And their underrated pass defense intercepted Baker Mayfield and helped hold the Bucs without a touchdown.  The Lions exited that win with a No. 2 team DVOA ranking that was the best in their franchise history.  And although they quickly relinquished that ranking with a blowout loss in Baltimore the next week, the Lions look like an easy favorite in a Bucs rematch three months later.

The Bucs may never have made it this far without their uninspiring NFC South division and without a wild-card matchup with a free-falling Eagles team. But the Bucs aren’t the same team that the Lions shut down in Week 6.  They’ve won five of their last six games and jumped to 14th in weighted DVOA. And with their preferences for passing on offense and man coverage on defense, the Bucs skew toward the weaker sides of some important Lions tendencies and could make this a competitive game.

All stats are for the regular season only except for weighted DVOA and anything else noted below. Week-to-week charts represent that team’s single-game total DVOA, not just offense. The extra line is a rolling five-week average. If you’re checking out FTN’s DVOA for the first time, it’s all explained right here.

WHEN THE BUCCANEERS HAVE THE BALL

A few years ago, ESPN’s Kevin Clark joked that teams would hire any coach who ever had a Bud Light Lime with Sean McVay.  And if you believe the recent Bucs broadcasts, McVay laid hands on Baker Mayfield, as well, instructing the failed former No. 1 draft pick to embrace his fiery, often-irritating personality and paving the way for his Tampa renaissance in 2023.

McVay may have fixed Mayfield.  But I believe he did it with strategic rather than psychological coaching.  Mayfield saw his best Browns success when he aggressively pushed the ball downfield.  In 2020, he ranked top 10 in average depth of target and in ALEX (air yards less expectations) on third downs, and he beat the league average with a 5.1% passing DVOA.  But the Panthers pushed Mayfield to play conservatively with bottom five aDOT and ALEX rates in 2022, and it didn’t work for him.  He suffered a -32.8% passing DVOA that was second worst at the position. McVay seemed to recognize and rectify that.  And more aggressive than ever with the Bucs in 2023, Mayfield enjoyed his most efficient passing season.

And more aggressive than ever, Mayfield matched the efficiency of his more experienced and more talented predecessor Tom Brady and staved off an expected Bucs offensive decline.  When he too was aggressive, Brady ranked in the top four with 25.0% and 26.5% passing DVOA rates in 2020 and 2021.  But because of offensive line and receiver injuries and an increasing unwillingness to take hits, Brady plummeted from a 9.0-yard aDOT and a 1.8-yard ALEX in his first Bucs season to 6.7- and -0.1-yard rates in his final Bucs season and slipped to an 11.0% DVOA.  Sometimes football is simple.  When you have a 6-foot-5 and 231-pound future-Hall-of-Fame wide receiver in Mike Evans, it helps your team to throw him jump balls.  I’m sure Lions safety C.J. Gardner-Johnson would agree.

A more aggressive Mayfield may be the major Bucs offensive hope in this Lions matchup.  Tampa has the fifth worst rushing offense, Detroit has the best rushing defense, and it showed in Week 6 when the former averaged an anemic 2.9 yards per attempt. But Mayfield’s recent prolific passing totals paint an unrealistic picture of what the quarterback is likely to contribute on Sunday.  Mayfield owes much of his 381-yard and four-touchdown and 337-yard and three-touchdown outbursts against the Packers and Eagles in recent weeks to his 203 and 182 yards after the catch, both 95th percentile totals for quarterbacks in 2023. He made accurate and timely throws to David Moore and Trey Palmer on Sunday.  But then two Eagles defenders collided with each other.

… and James Bradberry failed to wrap up.

And suddenly two modest first-down catches became 44- and 56-yard explosive touchdowns.

The Lions allowed a middle-of-the-pack 113 yards after the catch per game this season.  And if anything, they seem likely to better that total with a healthy Gardner-Johnson and a surging Ifeatu Melifonwu at safety.

If Mayfield wants some explosive plays this week, he should lean on play-action. While not necessarily worse, the Lions were more volatile intercepting 6 passes but allowing 10 touchdowns on play-action this season, the most and tied for third most in football.  And the Bucs may need that big-play volatility as significant underdogs.

WHEN THE LIONS HAVE THE BALL

Tampa head coach Todd Bowles loves to blitz.  His defense had a 38.9% blitz rate this season that was third highest. And he wasn’t shy in bringing extra rushers against a blitz-averse Eagles offense last weekend.  The Bucs blitzed on an outlier 71.8% of Jalen Hurts dropbacks, nearly double the next highest rate of Wild-Card Weekend.

Bowles will probably blitz a bunch on Sunday, too.  He blitzed on a healthy 33.3% of Lions dropbacks in their Week 6 matchup. And Jared Goff’s sensitivity to pressure encourages an aggressive defensive approach.  Goff declined from top six completion percentage and yards per attempt rates and from a 27-5 touchdown-interception ratio without pressure to below average rates and a 3-7 touchdown-interception ratio with pressure this season.

That said, Goff wasn’t too bothered by blitzes, specifically.  He threw for a season-high 353 yards and two touchdowns in that previously mentioned Week 6 Bucs matchup.  And he saw just modest declines in his completion rate, yards per attempt, and touchdown-interception ratio when teams brought an extra rusher.

The Bucs will need to generate pressure to make their blitzes meaningful, and that’s a tall order against a Lions offensive line that ranked fourth in adjusted sack rate and boasts three Pro Bowl linemen in Penei Sewell, Frank Ragnow, and Jonah Jackson.  And despite his reputation, it’s a tall order against Goff.  The veteran accelerated his average release from 2.62 seconds on non-blitzes to 2.35 seconds on blitzes, the latter which was 10th fastest among regular quarterbacks.

Still, there’s no reason for Bowles to change his stripes.  Goff isn’t better against blitzes than non-blitzes.  He just isn’t worse.  And while blitzes forced them into near triple their rate of man versus zone coverages on non-blitzes, the Bucs were dramatically better with the No. 1 pass defense DVOA in man than they were with the No. 29 pass defense DVOA in zone.  Cornerbacks Carlton Davis and Jamel Dean can take advantage of their big 6-foot-1 and 206-pound frames with press coverage in man, and the Bucs built their defense with that in mind.  Davis and Dean have their defense’s second and third biggest cap hits.

The Bucs may not carry over their blitz success from Wild-Card Weekend, but they might their success on third downs.  The Eagles went an insurmountable 0-for-9 on third downs last Sunday.  And the Bucs defense had the best third-down DVOA during the regular season, as well. 

But with a healthier-than-expected Sam LaPorta, the Lions have answers for every Bucs defensive strength.  Davis and Dean may jam the thin-framed outside receiver Jameson Williams at the line. But they likely can’t press the strong and twitchy slot receiver Amon-Ra St. Brown.  Lavonte David may can stick with the versatile Jahmyr Gibbs with the linebacker coverage skills that spurred the Bucs’ third best DVOA against running backs as receivers.  But then who will cover a much bigger but still elusive LaPorta?  Goff will be fine if he stays disciplined and takes what the Bucs defense gives him.  And while that is easier said than done, Goff has done it all season and seen a 22.3% passing DVOA that is third highest at his position.

SPECIAL TEAMS

The Bucs and Lions face their most boring matchup on special teams, where both teams have exactly neutral 0.0% DVOA rates.  At least they arrived at average in different ways.  Bucs kicker Chase McLaughlin made 29 of his 31 field goal attempts this season, including an impressive 7 of 8 from 50-plus yards.  He should have an advantage over Lions kicker Michael Badgley, who has just five 50-plus-yard makes in his six-year career and only earned his 2023 job after a late-season kicking competition with a now-released incumbent Riley Patterson.  The Lions fared better on kickoffs and punts this season, although their normal returner Kalif Raymond’s knee injury threatens that latter standing.  Without Raymond on Wild-Card Weekend, the Lions had former Browns receiver Donovan People-Jones return their punts.  But they could also use St. Brown in that role in a pinch.

The fans of intrigue will have to hope that the Lions bypass their special teams with offensive attempts on fourth downs.  And that’s a decent bet since their head coach Dan Campbell led the league in fourth-down offensive attempts and ranked second in the Aggressiveness Index.

OUTLOOK

It isn’t hard to imagine a narrative of a Lions loss to the Buccaneers. Detroit played their Super Bowl last Sunday.  They won their first playoff game in more than three decades and slayed the monster they created when they traded their former franchise quarterback Matthew Stafford to the Rams.  They could suffer a letdown against a lesser on-paper Bucs opponent this weekend.

But us DVOA writers trust our numbers.  And just as I doubted that Sean McVay fixed Baker Mayfield with an attitude adjustment, I doubt that the Lions would see their downfall for hubris. This weekend, the Lions should have the better quarterback.  They should have the better balance on offense and defense.  They should have a home-field advantage.  And I expect them to win their second playoff game of the last 32 years — and of the last eight days.