Los Angeles Rams
Detroit Lions
- WHERE: Ford Field | Detroit.
- WHEN: 8:20 p.m. ET | NBC, Universo, NFL+
Matthew Stafford will once again visit his former stomping grounds to take on Jared Goff and the Lions.
The Rams’ 2023 season ended in Detroit in a nail-biting 24-23 wild-card loss, handing the Lions their first playoff win since 1991. Meanwhile, the Lions enter the 2024 season as a Super Bowl contender for the first time in recent memory.
Here are three things to watch for when the Rams face off against the Lions on Sunday Night Football:
- Checking in on the Matthew Stafford-Jared Goff trade. There hasn’t been much buyers remorse on either side of this trade. Stafford won a Super Bowl in his first year with the Rams and has allowed head coach Sean McVay to evolve his offense. Goff on the other hand has developed into a more well-rounded quarterback under coordinator Ben Johnson in Detroit and now leads one of the most potent offenses in football. The two quarterbacks have registered remarkably similar efficiency numbers since swapping teams. Stafford has provided a major boost to the Rams offense when under pressure, however. He averaged a league-high 7.3 yards per attempt under pressure over the last three seasons in Los Angeles, compared to Goff’s 5.7 yards per attempt under pressure over his final three seasons with the Rams which ranked 31st over that time frame. The difference in the wild-card game was that Goff was near-perfect without pressure, completing all 21 of his passes for 266 yards and a TD.
- How do you replace the irreplaceable? Future first ballot hall-of-famer Aaron Donald hung up his cleats over the offseason, and the Rams are about to find out what life looks like without his gravity along the defensive line. Donald generated 473 pressures between 2018 and 2023, over 100 more than any other defensive tackle. The Rams defensive line will be among the youngest in the NFL, with second year players Byron Young and Kobie Turner cemented as starters and the Rams’ first two picks from the 2024 draft (Jared Verse and Braden Fiske) poised to see major playing time. Young (917 defensive snaps) and Turner (660) rarely left the field last season, each playing nearly 100 more snaps than the next closest rookie at their position.
- Rob Havenstein vs. Aidan Hutchinson. During last year’s playoff game, Hutchinson got the best of Havenstein, generating four pressures and a sack across 16 matchups. Those four pressures were the most Havenstein allowed to any single pass rusher in a game last season. We should expect to see these two face off plenty again on Sunday night, as Hutchinson aligned on the left edge (across from right tackles) on over two-thirds of his snaps last season. The Rams will hope that Havenstein can bounce back to his performance levels from the regular season, during which he allowed the fourth-lowest pressure rate among right tackles (6.8%).
