The Lions played that first game without key players like running back Jahmyr Gibbs, guard Jonah Jackson, slot cornerback Brian Branch and safety Ceedy Duce. They also lost their other top running back, David Montgomery, to a rib injury in the first half, forcing them to finish with Craig Reynolds playing his biggest role of the season. He delivered a monster block on a 28-yard touchdown catch by Amon-Ra St. Brown, but finished with just 15 rushing yards on 10 carries and Detroit had its worst day on the ground of the season. You have to figure that will change on Sunday.

On the other side of the ball, the Lions will have Branch back after starting Will Harris in the nickel for the first matchup. Duce is back as well, while his injury replacement, breakout safety Ifeatu Melifonwu, has earned a spot in the rotation too. The Lions have also improved the play at cornerback after turning to Kindle Vildor over Jerry Jacobs in the second half of the season.

The personnel hasn’t changed nearly as much for the Bucs, but their performance has. Their regular-season loss against Detroit kicked off a four-game losing streak. Now they’ve won six of their last seven games, and are still the last team to beat the Green Bay Packers, who also advanced to the divisional round.

Mayfield has led the way, throwing for 21 touchdowns and just seven interceptions since the loss against Detroit. He has a quarterback rating of 95.9 during that stretch. And he was especially good last week against Philadelphia, lighting up Matt Patricia’s defense for 337 passing yards, two touchdowns and a QB rating of 119.8 to help punch Tampa’s ticket to the divisional round.

He still has star receiver Mike Evans too, and while Evans was held to 49 yards in the first matchup, Mayfield also missed him running free on what would have been a long touchdown. Top receivers have torched Detroit in recent weeks, inclu

If Mayfield hits on those types of plays on Sunday, that game could play out much differently than the first one in October. Especially if the Bucs’ blitz-happy defense gets home to Goff, or the Lions are unable to get their ground game going again versus that big, stout front.

“It was so early in the season when we played them,” St. Brown said. “I mean, we’ve grown a lot as a team, as an offense. They’ve grown a lot as a team. Shoot, just watching their game live on TV, when they played the Eagles, I mean, it looked like they were flying around on defense. On offense, it looked like they were playing confident, receivers were making plays. Baker was playing well. So, you can definitely tell it’s a completely different team from when we played them.

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