Getty Frank Ragnow celebrates a touchdown with teammates.
The Detroit Lions have another quick turnaround this week as they get set for an early Saturday matchup with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers in Week 16.
Detroit remains battered and beaten as they finish out the 2020 season, and as part of getting run over during the weekend, some new injuries have come into the mix. Detroit didn’t practice on Tuesday after a few COVID-19 cases appeared within the building and the team worked remotely, so the report was full of mere estimations. Wednesday and Thursday, they got back to work with an afternoon practice and the Lions remained dinged up through the early estimations.
Here’s a look at how the inactives shape up this week:
Lions Injury Report: Week 16 Inactives
For Detroit, Stafford is in again which is good news, but it will be tough for the Lions to go without Collins and Ragnow, two of their better players on offense and defense. Good to see Prater good enough to go after a scare.
Lions-Buccaneers Series History
The Lions and Buccaneers used to be rivals from the old NFC Central division, but when everything was re-aligned and Detroit moved to the NFC North, they only play Tampa Bay once in a while now considering their status as an NFC South team. Historically, the series has been pretty even through the years. Perhaps surprisingly, the Lions lead the all-time series 31-28. Tampa has won two out of the last five games, including last year’s 38-17 drubbing late in the season in a game that didn’t matter much to either side. In terms of this season, the Lions will have to be the ones playing spoiler considering how the Buccaneers have been in the playoff picture most of the season to this point in time.
Lions-Buccaneers Primer
As mentioned above, the teams met late last year before Tom Brady joined the Buccaneers and the result was an ugly 38-17 loss. Detroit didn’t have plenty of big name players for that game given how rankled the team was by injury, but it was one of the uglier efforts in the now defunct Matt Patricia era for the team. Former Buccaneers quarterback Jameis Winston threw for 458 yards and 4 touchdowns on the afternoon. Tampa also had a pair of wideouts go for over 100 yards receiving against Detroit, with both Chris Godwin (121 yards) and Breshad Perriman (113 yards, 3 touchdowns) roasting the Lions. Perriman isn’t around to do damage this time around after signing with the New York Jets, but the Buccaneers do have Brady to sling the ball to a talented cast of wideouts like Godwin, Mike Evans and Antonio Brown along with tight ends Cameron Brate and Rob Gronkowski.
Detroit is trying to get healthier for this matchup, but it appears they will still be dinged up in several ways for this game.
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