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Where the 49ers are Better than the Lions

When the Lions inevitably blitz Brock Purdy, he should be able to shred them with quick passes over the middle to Brandon Aiyuk and George Kittle.
Grant Cohn|
Where the 49ers are Better than the Lions
Where the 49ers are Better than the Lions

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San Francisco 49ers

The Lions have a puncher's chance to beat the 49ers this Sunday because they're a good team, but the 49ers absolutely should win because they're better than Detroit practically across the board.

Let's start on defense. The Lions run defense is good, but their pass rush is not -- they rank 22nd out of 32 teams in sack percentage. Which means their pass defense is terrible. They have to blitz to generate pressure, their defensive backs take big gambles and give up big plays, and that's why Detroit ranks 27th in passing yards allowed and 27th in touchdown passes allowed.

When the Lions inevitably blitz Brock Purdy, he should be able to shred them with quick passes over the middle to Brandon Aiyuk and George Kittle. That's because Purdy is outstanding against the blitz. Expect him to have a big game.

The 49ers simply have better weapons than the Lions. Detroit's tight end Sam LaPorta is excellent but Kittle is the best. Detroit's running back tandem of David Montgomery and Jahmyr Gibbs is outstanding but Christian McCaffrey is the best. Detroit's No. 1 wide receiver Amon-Ra St. Brown is terrific but Brandon Aiyuk is better. And if Deebo Samuel plays through a shoulder injury, which he very well might, the Lions will have a very difficult time holding the 49ers offense to fewer than 30 points.

The final question is whether the 49ers have the better quarterback than the Lions. As of now, no, simply because Goff has been to a Super Bowl and Purdy hasn't yet. But if Purdy wins this game, Purdy gets the edge.

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Grant Cohn
GRANT COHN

Grant Cohn has covered the San Francisco 49ers daily since 2011. He spent the first nine years of his career with the Santa Rosa Press Democrat where he wrote the Inside the 49ers blog and covered famous coaches and athletes such as Jim Harbaugh, Colin Kaepernick and Patrick Willis. In 2012, Inside the 49ers won Sports Blog of the Year from the Peninsula Press Club. In 2020, Cohn joined FanNation and began writing All49ers. In addition, he created a YouTube channel which has become the go-to place on YouTube to consume 49ers content. Cohn's channel typically generates roughly 3.5 million viewers per month, while the 49ers' official YouTube channel generates roughly 1.5 million viewers per month. Cohn live streams almost every day and posts videos hourly during the football season. Cohn is committed to asking the questions that 49ers fans want answered, and providing the most honest and interactive coverage in the country. His loyalty is to the reader and the viewer, not the team or any player or coach. Cohn is a new-age multimedia journalist with an old-school mentality, because his father is Lowell Cohn, the legendary sports columnist for the San Francisco Chronicle from 1979 to 1993. The two have a live podcast every Tuesday. Grant Cohn grew up in Oakland and studied English Literature at UCLA from 2006 to 2010. He currently lives in Oakland with his wife.

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