Commanders at Lions: DVOA Preview

Only one road team won in the wild-card round this year, and of course it was the Washington Commanders. No other team this year has made such a habit of last-second, final-play, come-from-behind victories. Perhaps a doinked field goal off the uprights isn’t as dramatic as an improbable Hail Mary, but now five of the six games in their recent winning streak have come down the final play – either a last-second Washington score or a defensive stand. Walking that line has gotten them this far, and as reward, they get the rested-and-ready Detroit Lions. Hide your punters and get your abacuses out, as this promises to be the highest-scoring game of the round – an over/under of 55.5, as the Commanders don’t play defense and the Lions’ defense is still mostly banged up. Let the scoring commence!

Week-to-week charts represent that team’s single-game total DVOA. 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.

Except for WEIGHTED DVOA, which gives more weight to recent games, all stats are regular-season only unless noted.

The no-punt, no-turnover game has become slightly more common in recent years, but it’s still happened just 39 times since the merger – the mark of a near-perfect offensive day. Three of those 39 games came from the 2024 Washington Commanders. Three of those 39 games came from the 2024 Detroit Lions. Each team sets the single-season record there – heck, only the 2021 Bills even did it twice in a season before 2024 – and now they go head-to-head. You can get under 5.5 punts at +120 and the teams to have the same number of punts at +360 at the moment.

A major part of those no-punt games is the fact that Detroit and Washington have been two of the most aggressive and successful teams on fourth down. Washington is first in both fourth-down DVOA (91.0%) and success rate (84%). The Lions are more modest, at 47.8% and 65%, respectively, but no team in football goes for it more when they should than Detroit. Your exact result will vary from model to model, but the Lions go on fourth down about 65% of the time when the model suggests they should. No one else in the league is above 60%.

Washington’s fourth-down success comes more from their success in short-yardage situations. Washington is third in DVOA on third/fourth-and-short with a 29.5% DVOA. A lot of that can be chalked up to having Jayden Daniels. He’s picked up a first down on nine of his 10 third/fourth-and-short designed runs, all five of his five scrambles, and a very solid 65% of his pass attempts. He’s a nightmare for defenses to account for when he gets out of the pocket. The Lions, meanwhile rank just 20th on defense on third/fourth-and-short with a 6.4% DVOA. Washington needs to play all third-and-mediums like they are in four-down territory if they want to pull off the upset.

Because of their defensive injuries, the Lions heavily rely on the blitz. They’re sixth with a 33.6% blitz rate, and that jumps to 38.3% and third most if you only look at games after Aiden Hutchinson went down. Daniels ranks 23rd with a -7.4% DVOA against the blitz, but that’s just passing. Daniels 191 DYAR on scrambles led the league, and while part of that is sheer volume, his 40.8% DVOA was ninth among quarterbacks with at least 20 scrambles.

Detroit led the league by playing man coverage 60.7% of the time. Couple that with the blitzing, and Aaron Glenn is trusting his corners to win one-on-one battles up and down the field. This is a mixed bag – Detroit has allowed 34 explosive passes in man coverage, fourth in the league, but also limits teams to just a 40.2% success rate. You either beat them deep (12.2 yards per completion, sixth worst), or you don’t beat them at all (6.5 yards per attempt, ninth best). Daniels’ 1.8% DVOA against man is nothing spectacular, but his 7.5 aDOT against man is seventh lowest in the league. We’ll see if Washington opens up their attack more and looks for deep shots to Terry McLaurin against Detroit’s all-or-nothing defense. (And, of course, man coverage means Daniels scrambling.)

Detroit’s defense ranks 30th in power (short-yardage) success at 77%. Washington’s offense ranks fourth in power success at 76%. That’s more Brian Robinson Jr.’s territory than Austin Ekeler’s, so expect plenty of him on short and goal-to-go situations.

However, the biggest mismatch of the game comes when the Lions have the ball and are running. They are second in rushing with a 12.1% DVOA, while Washington’s defense is 26th at -2.5%. This gets even worse on second downs, where the Lions still rank second but the Commanders fall all the way to 32nd. David Montgomery has returned to practice, too, so the Lions look to have both him and Jahmyr Gibbs ready to go. That is a very tough ask for Washington to slow down.

Not that Jared Goff has been much easier to stop, and Washington is particularly poorly situated there, too. The Commanders are 30th against passes up the middle, and that’s where Goff has historically excelled. In 2024, he passes to the middle more than any other quarterback at 32%, and he’s third with 690 DYAR. Washington’s secondary did not get the boost they hoped for from Marshon Lattimore’s return on Sunday, and now Bobby Wagner is banged up.

If Wagner can’t go, one of Washington’s few areas of strength may evaporate, too. Washington is fourth against running backs as receivers with a -25.3% DVOA, but Wagner drops back into coverage as much as any other linebacker in football. Gibbs and Montgomery were second and third in receiving DYAR among running backs this year; losing Wagner would be a huge blow in trying to keep that in check.

The Lions also have a significant advantage on special teams. It doesn’t look like that on the surface, where the Lions rank first (5.4%) and the Commanders rank ninth (2.1%), but while Detroit is good across the board, Washington has some weak points. They are 25th on punt returns while Detroit is fourth on punts – so it’s probably a very good thing that Detroit has the lowest punt rate in the league. But they’re also 26th on field goals, while Detroit is ninth. Washington may have doinked their way into the divisional round, but they don’t want to rely on that again if they can avoid it.