Game Overview ::
By hilow >>
- The Lions continue to enjoy a season of relative health, with the biggest name on their injury report C Frank Ragnow (knee/back/toe), who continues to miss practice with multiple injuries. That said, he also continues to play through multiple injuries.
- Vikings RB Alexander Mattison (ankle) has not practiced in any capacity since injuring his ankle in Week 14. He appears extremely unlikely to play against the Lions.
- QB Nick Mullens will start for the Vikings for the second straight week.
How detroit Will Try To Win ::
As we continue to talk about throughout the site, the Lions have been relegated to “trying to score more points than their opponent” this season due to a relative inability to stop opponents from scoring. Their games this season have combined for 41 points, 68 points, 26 points (against the Falcons), 54 points, 68 points, 26 points (against the Buccaneers), 44 points, 40 points, 79 points, 57 points, 51 points, 61 points, 41 points, and 59 points. In other words, the Lions have played to an average of 51.1 points per game this year, with four absolute eruption game environments. They are still very much a team that aims to win with an attack biased toward the ground game, particularly in the red and green zones. Overall, the Lions rank 23rd in PROE, second in plays per game (66.9), seventh in rush attempts per game (29.3), and 11th in pass attempts per game 35.6).
The backfield continues to be rather straightforward to dissect, albeit with the added caveat that the split in workload between David Montgomery and electric rookie Jahmyr Gibbs is prone to influence from the game environment. Gibbs is the back likelier to see the most snaps and opportunities in negative game environments, Montgomery is the back likelier to see the most snaps and opportunities in positive game environments, and the two are likely to be near-even in neutral game environments. The opportunity split between the two in the last four games has been 19, 10, 15, 13 for Gibbs to 16, 20, 13, 20 for Montgomery, with Montgomery leading the way in both wins and Gibbs leading the way in both losses. But that split in backfield work also means that neither is likely to exceed 20 running back opportunities on a given week while sharing the 29.3 rush attempts the team averages per game. Montgomery has gone over 20 DK points on two occasions in 10 games played together while Gibbs has done so three times in 10 games where both are healthy. Montgomery has provided a GPP-worthy score just once in those shared games based on his current salary while Gibbs has done so twice. All of that to say, this backfield remains a tight timeshare and either back needs touchdown variance to work in their favor to return elite level production. The matchup is not ideal this week against a Vikings defense holding opposing backs to 3.7 yards per carry (fifth) behind 1.13 yards allowed before contact (eighth).
It’s a similar story for the Detroit pass offense, with Amon-Ra St. Brown and rookie tight end Sam LaPorta the only two players that see near every-down roles. Josh Reynolds, Jameson Williams, Kalif Raymond, and Donovan Peoples-Jones rotate through the remaining snaps at wide receiver with Williams now seeing the highest snap rate of the lot (52-68 percent since the team’s Week 9 bye). St. Brown has now gone over 100 yards or scored a touchdown in 12 of 14 games this season, doing both in the same game three times. That has left him with four instances of 26.2 DK points or more this season, which would be the threshold to classify his GPP-viable scores based on an inflated salary. LaPorta has scored 17.7 DK points or more in six of 14 games, with his salary now ballooned to a point where he has returned a 3x salary multiplier just twice this season based on his current salary. That said, nine touchdowns at tight end is noticeable, offsetting the fact that he has seen double-digit targets just three times this season. The Vikings have run top 10 rates of zone coverage this season while blitzing at the highest rate in the league, which has allowed them to hold opponents to just 5.8 net yards per pass attempt while ranking second in yards allowed per route run when in zone. In other words, this is a tough on-paper matchup for Lions pass-catchers this week. Finally, the Lions have performed worse as a team against zone in comparison to their exploits versus man, with only St. Brown and LaPorta grading as above average against zone this season.
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