49ers TE George Kittle tells Pat McAfee what makes Brock Purdy such a particular quarterback. (1:09)
The Detroit Lions and San Francisco 49ers face off Sunday with a spot in Tremendous Bowl LVIII on the road, however the franchises inform a narrative of getting been on completely different trajectories.
San Francisco is making its fourth NFC Championship Recreation look since 2019, whereas Detroit is within the playoffs for the primary time since 2016. The Lions are one among 4 franchises to by no means play within the Tremendous Bowl because it started in 1966, and the 49ers are searching for their third look this century.
The NFC Championship Recreation is a quarterback matchup between a No. 1 decide (Jared Goff) and the ultimate decide of an NFL draft (Brock Purdy). Goff has misplaced all 5 of his begins in opposition to the 49ers for the reason that starting of the 2019 season, whereas Purdy has but to face the Lions.
Listed below are extra notable numbers behind the Lions-49ers NFC Championship Recreation.
10: A key a part of Detroit’s resurgence has been Goff’s efficiency. He’ll turn out to be the tenth quarterback to start out in convention championship video games with a number of franchises.
A win would make Goff the fifth signal-caller to start out a Tremendous Bowl with a number of franchises — Tom Brady, Peyton Manning, Kurt Warner and Craig Morton are the others. Solely Brady and Manning gained two Tremendous Bowls with two completely different franchises.
8: Much like Goff, who made it to the Tremendous Bowl in his third season, Purdy has performed significant video games early in his profession.
He can turn out to be the eighth quarterback to start out within the Tremendous Bowl in his first or second 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 earlier seven have a 4-3 document of their Tremendous Bowl debuts.
37: The Lions have little or no postseason success of their franchise historical past. Detroit has simply three playoff wins courting again to 1967. Quite the opposite, there are 37 gamers on San Francisco’s present lively roster with a minimum of three playoff wins individually, per Elias Sports activities Bureau.
In different phrases, 67% of the gamers on the 49ers have as many playoff wins because the Lions franchise throughout the Tremendous Bowl period.
11: Detroit has the fourth longest lively championship drought throughout the NFL, NBA, MLB and NHL, with its final championship coming in 1957. The Lions are additionally searching for their first playoff street win since 1957, which got here in opposition to the 49ers.
Since then, Detroit has misplaced 11 straight street playoff video games, the longest street shedding streak in NFL postseason historical past.
27: Each the 49ers and Lions have completed a lot of their harm on the bottom. They each tied for the NFL lead with 27 speeding touchdowns throughout the common season.
San Francisco’s Christian McCaffrey (14) and Detroit’s David Montgomery (13) and Jahmyr Gibbs (10) had been all among the many prime 10 in speeding touchdowns throughout the common season.
ESPN Stats & Data contributed to this story.
