NFC Championship Game Betting Preview: Lions vs. 49ers
The Detroit Lions are on the verge of their first Super Bowl appearance in franchise history. Standing in their way are the San Francisco 49ers, the favorites to win it all who have been in the Big Game seven times before, most recently in 2020. However, the 49ers fell short in the NFC championship each of the last two seasons and they backed into their third consecutive appearance by narrowly surviving an upset bid in the divisional round.
It took a fourth-quarter comeback for San Francisco to defeat the Green Bay Packers 24–21 on Saturday. The offense was not the same once Deebo Samuel (shoulder) went down in the first quarter — the dynamic receiver is currently questionable for Sunday’s game. Detroit had a close call of its own in a 31–23 win over the Tampa Bay Buccaneers on Sunday. Though the Lions never trailed, the score was tied at 17 at the start of the fourth quarter.
The 49ers are 6.5-point favorites over Detroit at Levi’s Stadium. Long the underdog, this will be just the fourth time this season the Lions are getting points and it’s easily their largest underdog position. The over/under is 50.5 points, according to SI Sportsbook.
Brock Purdy has never played Detroit and Jared Goff lost his only start against San Francisco since he was traded to the Lions. However, Goff faced the 49ers plenty when he was with the Rams. He went 3–5 against them with L.A. and has lost five straight to San Francisco dating back to 2019, including a 41–33 loss in 2021 with Detroit.
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Lions vs. 49ers Odds and Game Info
Moneyline: Lions (+250) | 49ers (-333)
Spread: DET +6.5 (-110) | SF -6.5 (-118)
Total: 50.5 — Over (-125) | Under (+100)
Game Info: Sunday, Jan. 28, 6:30 p.m. ET | FOX
Detroit’s Jahmyr Gibbs and San Francisco’s Chrisitan McCaffrey are just two of several big-play threats in this game.
Detroit and San Francisco Key Stats and Fun Facts:
- Overs have hit at a high rate for both the Lions (12–7) and 49ers (10–8) this year. However, the under hit last week in San Francisco’s only game with a total that closed in the 50s.
- Christian McCaffrey, who won the rushing title with 1,459 yards on the ground, is up against a Detroit defense that allowed the second-fewest rushing yards per game (88.8) in the regular season.
- The 49ers are 8–9 without Deebo Samuel over the last five seasons and 0–2 this year.
Best Bet: Lions +6.5 (-110)
The home-field advantage Detroit earned for finishing with the third-best record in the NFC paid off. The Lions took down Matthew Stafford and the Rams 24–23 in the wild card round at Ford Field and then beat the Bucs last week. Goff is playing even better football than when he went to the Super Bowl in 2018 with L.A. He has the second-most passing yards in the playoffs (564) behind Baker Mayfield and he ranks first in completion percentage (74.3).
Goff has gotten his entire receiving corps involved in the postseason. Amon-Ra St. Brown is leading the charge with 187 yards and a score through two games, Josh Reynolds is also over 100 yards already and he scored last week and rookies Jahmyr Gibbs and Sam LaPorta have both been heavily involved. Gibbs has hauled in all eight targets for 83 yards in addition to his 99 rushing yards and two rushing touchdowns. Good things happen when he gets the ball as he’s averaging over seven yards per touch in his first playoff run.
Detroit’s secondary was gashed by Stafford and Mayfield, each of whom threw for over 340 yards and multiple scores. What was a weakness in the regular season has proven to be an outright liability in the playoffs. Purdy finished top five in passing yards and touchdowns in the regular season and is poised to punish the Lions for those defensive deficiencies. Perhaps Aidan Hutchinson, who has eight sacks in his last four games, can pressure Purdy in the pocket.
San Francisco force-fed Christian McCaffrey 24 touches (17 carries, seven receptions) against the Packers and he produced. McCaffrey finished with 128 scrimmage yards and two touchdowns, one of which ended up deciding the game with just over a minute to go.
George Kittle led the team in receiving with 81 yards and he got the scoring underway for the 49ers in the second quarter on a 32-yard catch. In Samuel’s absence, Jauan Jennings stepped up with a season-high 61 yards on five catches while Brandon Aiyuk was limited to 32 on three grabs.
San Francisco largely kept Jordan Love in check — the loss was his first game with fewer than 200 passing yards since October and he threw two interceptions — but Green Bay did find success on the ground with Aaron Jones. That’s something Lions offensive coordinator Ben Johnson might try to target with Gibbs and David Montgomery, though the 49ers were the No. 3 defense against the run in the regular season.
Detroit had the highest cover rate this year (12–5) and they’re 1–1 so far in the playoffs as a favorite in both games. As an underdog, the Lions were 2–1 against the spread with an upset win over the Chiefs way back in Week 1. The 49ers, on the other hand, were a respectable 9–8 against the spread in the regular season before they nearly lost as a 10.5-point home favorite last week. San Francisco is also just 5–7 against the spread as a favorite of six-plus points and the Lions have been just as good straight up on the road (6–3) as the Niners have been at home.
Kyle Shanahan might be headed back to another Super Bowl, but if Dan Campbell has shown us anything it’s that his team isn’t going down without a fight.
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