Anthony Gharib, ESPN
The Detroit Lions and San Francisco 49ers face off Sunday with a place in Tremendous Bowl LVIII at the order, however the franchises inform a tale of getting been on other trajectories.
San Francisco is making its fourth NFC Championship Recreation look since 2019, date Detroit is within the playoffs for the primary age since 2016. The Lions are one in every of 4 franchises to by no means play games within the Tremendous Bowl since it all started in 1966, and the 49ers are searching for their 3rd look this century.
The NFC Championship Recreation is a quarterback matchup between a Disagree. 1 select (Jared Goff) and the overall select of an NFL draft (Brock Purdy). Goff has misplaced all 5 of his begins towards the 49ers because the starting of the 2019 season, date Purdy has but to stand the Lions.
Listed below are extra impressive numbers at the back of the Lions-49ers NFC Championship Recreation.
10: A key a part of Detroit’s resurgence has been Goff’s efficiency. He’ll change into the tenth quarterback to start out in convention championship video games with a couple of franchises.
A win would build Goff the 5th signal-caller to start out a Tremendous Bowl with a couple of franchises — Tom Brady, Peyton Manning, Kurt Warner and Craig Morton are the others. Handiest Brady and Manning gained two Tremendous Bowls with two other franchises.
8: Alike to Goff, who made it to the Tremendous Bowl in his 3rd season, Purdy has performed significant video games early in his profession.
He can change into the 8th quarterback to start out within the Tremendous Bowl in his first or 2d NFL season, becoming a member of Dan Marino (1984), Warner (1999), Brady (2001), Ben Roethlisberger (2005), Colin Kaepernick (2012), Russell Wilson (2013) and Joe Burrow (2021).
The former seven have a 4-3 report of their Tremendous Bowl debuts.
37: The Lions have very negligible postseason good fortune of their franchise historical past. Detroit has simply 3 playoff wins courting again to 1967. To the contrary, there are 37 gamers on San Francisco’s flow lively roster with no less than 3 playoff wins personally, in step with Elias Sports activities Bureau.
In alternative phrases, 67% of the gamers at the 49ers have as many playoff wins because the Lions franchise all the way through the Tremendous Bowl future.
11: Detroit has the fourth longest lively championship drought around the NFL, NBA, MLB and NHL, with its closing championship coming in 1957. The Lions also are searching for their first playoff highway win since 1957, which got here towards the 49ers.
Since upcoming, Detroit has misplaced 11 immediately highway playoff video games, the longest highway dropping streak in NFL postseason historical past.
27: Each the 49ers and Lions have carried out a lot in their harm at the farmland. They each fix for the NFL top with 27 dashing touchdowns all the way through the habitual season.
San Francisco’s Christian McCaffrey (14) and Detroit’s David Montgomery (13) and Jahmyr Gibbs (10) have been all a number of the manage 10 in dashing touchdowns all the way through the habitual season.
ESPN Stats & Data contributed to this tale.
