By: Jeremy T. Ballreich
The Detroit Football Lions (3-6) travel to East Rutherford, NJ to face the New York Football Giants (7-2). The Giants seem to be winning due to great coaching and an excellent run game headed up by the re-emergence of RB Saquon Barkley this season. Who hasn’t been healthy the last 2 seasons. But so far is top 3 back I’m the league with his production. There defense has done well to contain most of their opponents, except the RB Dameon Pierce of the Texans and the Dallas Cowboys Tandem of Zeke Elliot and Tony Pollard.
The Lions should be getting a couple of players back practicing for them, most notably (for me anyways) DJ Chark. The first 4 games that Chark was on the field. The Lions offense was almost unstoppable, they had a league leading 35.5 points per game. Took the 5 games to score over 30 without him (week 10 31-30 victory in Chicago). Also the return of their team leading pass rusher of 2020, who has been recovering since week 4 of last season.
Are the Lions up to this daunting task? They could be. Because the Lions are actually 15th against RBs defensively this season (adjusted by removing the QB rushing yards). And actually been pretty decent in the redzone. With a 50% red zone efficiency on defense. Most notably, the Lions are actually great this season in the redzone offensively. Scoring TDs 62% of the time. And 13% more are FGs. That is 75% efficient.
The New York Giants are also pretty effective in the Redzone with a 78% efficiency on offense. But have struggled with stopping teams in the Red Zone with a 29% efficiency.
Can the Lions win this Sunday. Absolutely 
they can. Do I expect it. Maybe not. But it should be fun to watch.
Keys to the game. Stop Barkley, contain Daniel Jones, who’s called Vanilla Vick by his teammate Saquon Barkley. Because believe it or not. Daniel Jones is the fastest straight line running QB in the league. Clocked at 22.48 mph.
On offense, run the ball for four quarters. Negating the pass rush and allowing the play cation to be set up. Which is when this offense has it’s biggest successes.
Score Prediction:
If everything goes right….
Lions 27
Giants 21
If it goes off the rails
Lions 20
Giants 24
Thanks for reading!!!
