Six teams remain in the hunt for a Super Bowl title, but two of them will be going home at the end of the day. The first Sunday NFL divisional round playoff game is the Tampa Bay Buccaneers take on the Detroit Lions at Ford Field. The game kicks off at 3 p.m. ET and can be seen on NBC and Peacock.
The Buccaneers (9-8) won the NFC South title on the final week of the regular season and blew past the Philadelphia Eagles in the wild-card round of the playoffs last week. The team has won six of its last seven games, and quarterback Baker Mayfield has led the way. During the regular season, Mayfield threw for 4,044 yards, and 28 touchdowns with a 94.6 passer rating. He took over for Tom Brady, who announced his retirement in February 2023. Head coach Todd Bowles is also a key to the Buccaneers’ success as the team stayed the course despite losing six of seven games in the earlier part of the season.
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“You’re going to go through adversity in the NFL,” Bowles told reporters last week, per ESPN. “You’re not going to go through unscathed. Very few teams go through 17-0 and they win every playoff game and win the Super Bowl. You’re going to have to learn some lessons. You’re going to have to get mentally tougher. That comes with chemistry. The culture we created here, the chemistry they developed in training camp and minicamp — as long as you go through the downs together, you’ll come out of it together, and these guys have stayed the course.”
The Lions (13-5) are coming off an emotional win against the Los Angeles Rams. The victory was historic as it was their first playoff win since 1991. Detroit is now one win away from reaching its first NFC Championship game but knows it is facing a dangerous Buccaneers team.
“This is a tackling, tough football team,” Lions head coach Dan Campbell said, per Sports Illustrated. “That was evident. That popped on the tape: There’s one team that’s freaking aggressive and flying around here, so we know we got our hands full. We played this team before. This is going to be a mirror image of us, two heavyweights going at it, body blows. It ought to be an exciting game.”
