The 49ers Will Face the Detroit Lions in the NFC Championship Game

Should be one hell of a game.

Grant Cohn | Jan 21, 2024

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San Francisco 49ers

The Detroit Lions just beat the Tampa Bay Buccaneers 31-23 in the divisional playoffs, which means the 49ers host the Lions in the NFC Championship Game next weekend.

How do the 49ers match up with Detroit?

First, the Lions have an excellent offensive line, which gives them a chance against the 49ers. The Minnesota Vikings have a good offensive line which allowed Kirk Cousins to dice up the 49ers defense. The Lions offensive line can do the same for Jared Goff, who's not mobile and gets uncomfortable with bodies around, but he has a phenomenal arm and he's mentally tough.

The 49ers have a ton of money invested in their defensive line, which didn't show up against the Packers. If it doesn't show up against the Lions, the 49ers will be in trouble.

Detroit's running back, Jahmyr Gibbs, is one of the most explosive running backs in the NFL -- the 49ers will have a tough time preventing him from running around the perimeter because they don't set edges well in the run game.

The Lions also have an excellent rookie tight end in Sam LaPorta, as well as a Pro Bowl wide receiver in Amon-Ra St. Brown. Which means the Lions have just about everything on offense.

Assuming it doesn't rain, the NFC Championship Game could be high scoring. And the 49ers should win the game, but the difference between these teams might not be that great, considering the 49ers almost lost to the Packers, and the Lions are more experienced than Green Bay.

Should be one hell of a game.

Published Jan 21, 2024

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.