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Anthony Gharib, ESPN
The Detroit Lions and San Francisco 49ers face off Sunday with a spot in Super Bowl LVIII on the line, but the franchises tell a story of having been on different trajectories.
San Francisco is making its fourth NFC Championship Game appearance since 2019, while Detroit is in the playoffs for the first time since 2016. The Lions are one of four franchises to never play in the Super Bowl since it began in 1966, and the 49ers are seeking their third appearance this century.
The NFC Championship Game is a quarterback matchup between a No. 1 pick (Jared Goff) and the final pick of an NFL draft (Brock Purdy). Goff has lost all five of his starts against the 49ers since the beginning of the 2019 season, while Purdy has yet to face the Lions.
Here are more notable numbers behind the Lions-49ers NFC Championship Game.
10: A key part of Detroit’s resurgence has been Goff’s performance. He will become the 10th quarterback to start in conference championship games with multiple franchises.
A win would make Goff the fifth signal-caller to start a Super Bowl with multiple franchises — Tom Brady, Peyton Manning, Kurt Warner and Craig Morton are the others. Only Brady and Manning won two Super Bowls with two different franchises.
8: Similar to Goff, who made it to the Super Bowl in his third season, Purdy has played meaningful games early in his career.
He can become the eighth quarterback to start in the Super Bowl in his first or second NFL season, joining Dan Marino (1984), Warner (1999), Brady (2001), Ben Roethlisberger (2005), Colin Kaepernick (2012), Russell Wilson (2013) and Joe Burrow (2021).
The previous seven have a 4-3 record in their Super Bowl debuts.
37: The Lions have very little postseason success in their franchise history. Detroit has just three playoff wins dating back to 1967. On the contrary, there are 37 players on San Francisco’s current active roster with at least three playoff wins individually, per Elias Sports Bureau.
In other words, 67% of the players on the 49ers have as many playoff wins as the Lions franchise during the Super Bowl era.
11: Detroit has the fourth longest active championship drought across the NFL, NBA, MLB and NHL, with its last championship coming in 1957. The Lions are also seeking their first playoff road win since 1957, which came against the 49ers.
Since then, Detroit has lost 11 straight road playoff games, the longest road losing streak in NFL postseason history.
27: Both the 49ers and Lions have done much of their damage on the ground. They both tied for the NFL lead with 27 rushing touchdowns during the regular season.
San Francisco’s Christian McCaffrey (14) and Detroit’s David Montgomery (13) and Jahmyr Gibbs (10) were all among the top 10 in rushing touchdowns during the regular season.
ESPN Stats & Information contributed to this story.