Time, how to watch, TV, live stream, key matchups, prediction for ‘Monday Night Football’

Week 8 of the 2023 NFL season features a full slate of 16 games, the last of which will see the Detroit Lions play host to the Las Vegas Raiders on “Monday Night Football.”

Detroit suffered a dispiriting loss last week, having been thoroughly dismantled by the Baltimore Ravens. Las Vegas, meanwhile, lost to a Chicago Bears team starting an undrafted Division II rookie at quarterback. A week later, each of these teams is looking to get back in the win column.

The Lions remain strongly positioned in the NFC North, especially after the Vikings defeated the Packers on Sunday but lost Kirk Cousins in the process. The Raiders, meanwhile, are trying to avoid falling into the basement of the AFC West.

So, will the Lions bounce back, or will the Raiders pull off the upset? We’ll find out soon enough. Before we break down the matchup, here’s a look at how you can watch the game.

When the Raiders have the ball
This Las Vegas offense has largely struggled this season, no matter whether it has had Jimmy Garoppolo under center or not. Vegas checks in 27th in total yards and 30th in points. The Raiders have yet to score more than 21 in a game, and they have gained more than 300 yards just twice. That is brutal, ugly stuff.

Meanwhile, up until getting absolutely roasted by the Ravens a week ago, the Lions had been quite good defensively. They allowed just one of their first six opponents to top 24 points, and held two of them to single-digits. Only the Seahawks generated more than 350 yards of offense, and that game went to overtime. Of course, Baltimore just lit them up for 503 yards and put 38 on the scoreboard, so the potential is there for a good offense to do some damage.

Alas, the Raiders do not have a good offense. They do almost nothing well. Josh Jacobs looks nothing like the All-Pro player he was last season. In fact, he looks worse than he did during his first three years in the NFL. Jacobs is averaging a career-worst (by a mile) 2.9 yards per carry just a year after posting a career-best 4.9 per-carry mark.

But the passing game has perhaps been even more disappointing, with the combination of Garoppolo, Brian Hoyer, and Aidan O’Connell posting just 6.7 yards per attempt and an 8-to-12 touchdown-to-interception ratio while and completed just 13 (THIRTEEN!) passes of 20 yards or more. Not 20 air yards. 20 yards gained.

Las Vegas has been able to neutralize pressure by having the QBs get the ball out incredibly quickly, but it hasn’t much mattered. This has been an inert, inept offense. And it’s going up against a unit that’s had a lot of success this year.

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When the Lions have the ball
Jared Goff is a different quarterback when playing at home in the friendly confines of Ford Field — and when he’s able to operate from a clean pocket. The difference in his passing performance between home games and road games since arriving in Detroit is stark, and he has remained one of the NFL’s most susceptible quarterbacks to pressure during that time as well.

Luckily for the Lions, they’re playing this game at home. Also luckily for the Lions, they’re playing it against the Raiders. Maxx Crosby is utterly fantastic and remains one of the best edge rushers in the game, but the Raiders have almost nobody else who can generate pressure. Despite employing Crosby, who’s sixth among 95 players who have rushed the passer at least 150 times with a 17.9% pressure rate, the Raiders as a team have recorded a sack, hit, or hurry on just 31.3% of opponent dropbacks, the eighth-lowest rate in football.

Specifically, Goff tends to deliver over the middle, especially to slot receiver Amon-Ra St. Brown, tight end Sam LaPorta and rookie running back Jahmyr Gibbs. Guess which area of the field the Raiders are worst at defending? That’d be the middle of the field, where they rank 30th in FTN’s DVOA. If you can’t get pressure and you can’t prevent passes to the very area of the field your opponent prefers to attack, you are probably in trouble as a defense.

That’s presumably going to be the case even without David Montgomery, who is expected to miss another game with the ribs injury he suffered a couple of weeks ago. Gibbs and Craig Reynolds should be the primary ball-carriers, and Detroit checks in 11th in the NFL in yards before contact per carry so far this season, it’s not difficult at all to see the Lions getting something going on the ground here as well.

In other words, the Lions are extremely well set up for offensive success, however they decide to pursue it. Such is the benefit of going up against a defense that has struggled to deal with just about every kind of offense so far this year.

Prediction: Lions 31, Raiders 16

Detroit is coming off a disastrous loss a week ago, but this opponent is not nearly of the same quality. The Raiders have exclusively defeated teams with poor offenses so far this season, and this Lions team does not have a poor offense. If they can get anything going at all, it’s unlikely that Vegas can keep up.