Detroit beat Arizona by 24 and took its bye at 3-2, and our model has the Lions as the title favorite at 24.5 percent
Updated
Detroit went to Arizona and won 45-21, took its bye, and watched the Rams lose twice. The Lions are 3-2, fourth in the NFC North by record, and when we ran the rest of the season they came out at 12-4, averaging 12.5 wins, with a 97 percent playoff chance and a 24.5 percent title chance, the best in football. The record projection is unchanged from two weeks ago. The title odds are up half a point, and the gap to second place is seven points, because the Rams fell from 29 percent to 8.5 and Detroit absorbed most of it. A 3-2 team is the favorite for the Super Bowl. That is what the best offense in football and a weakened field produces.
The offense is the best in the league by a margin and the model has widened it. Detroit projects for 522 points, the most in football by 75, and the Lions have scored 164 in five games. Jared Goff is 128 of 191 for 1,485 yards with twelve touchdowns and no interceptions, a 111 rating, and projects for 4,721 yards and 37 touchdowns against three interceptions, which is still the best ratio the model has produced for any quarterback. Jahmyr Gibbs has 504 rushing yards and seven touchdowns in five games and projects for 1,543 and 19, up from 1,396 and 17. Sam LaPorta projects for 80 catches and ten touchdowns. Amon-Ra St. Brown for 110 catches and ten. Jameson Williams for 944 yards. Isiah Pacheco remains on injured reserve.
The defense is the hedge and it has allowed 148 points in five games, 29.6 a game, which is why a 522-point offense is a 12.5-win team rather than a 14-win one. Detroit projects to allow 377 points, 20th in the league, up from 360 and 18th. The pass rush is the best in football by projection at 56.8 sacks, and Aidan Hutchinson projects for 17.1 with Derrick Barnes at nearly eleven from linebacker and Alim McNeill at over nine from the interior. The back end is where the points come from. Bishop Fitzgerald's interception projection has gone from near zero to over two and a half as the rookie safety has taken a starting role. Chuck Clark projects for 95 tackles. Roger McCreary's tackle projection has climbed from 49 to 77, which is the sign of a corner being targeted.
The division has three teams ahead of the Lions by record and the model has Detroit ahead of all of them. Minnesota is 5-0 and projects for ten wins. Green Bay is 4-2 and projects for eleven with eight percent title odds. Chicago is 4-2 and projects for nine. The Lions are two games behind the Vikings and a half-game behind the Packers and Bears, and still project to finish a win and a half ahead of anyone. When we ran the rest of the season Detroit won the NFC North in a clear majority of simulated years, and the Green Bay game at home this week at 52 percent is the first of the three that decides whether the record catches the projection.
The next month is four home-and-away games against teams the model mostly rates below the Lions. Green Bay at home at 52 percent, Minnesota at home at 84, a trip to Miami at 96, and New England at home at 74. When we ran that stretch Detroit went 3-1 more often than anything else and 4-0 often enough to matter. A 7-2 record entering the second week of November, with the Packers and Vikings both beaten, would put the Lions on top of the division and on the 12-win pace.
The Arizona game was the only one the Lions played in the fortnight and it was a 45-21 win in which the offense scored its most points of the season and the defense gave up 21 to an offense that had scored 24 or fewer in two of its first four games. The model gave Detroit 84 percent in it. The title odds rose half a point from the bye, which is the Rams losing twice while the Lions sat at home, and the record projection held at 12.5 because the model's new weighting looked at five games of a defense that has given up 29.6 a game and did not move it. That is the honest read on Detroit: the offense is the best in football by a margin the model has never produced for any team, 75 points clear of second, and the defense is 20th. Goff's touchdown projection rose one and his interception projection fell one, which means the model now has him at 37 and three. Gibbs' rushing projection rose 147 yards and two touchdowns. Fitzgerald's interception projection going from near zero to over two and a half is the rookie safety earning a job. What moves the number from here is Green Bay at home on Sunday at 52 percent and Minnesota at home two weeks later at 84. Win both and the Lions are 5-2 on top of the division with the best title odds in football and a defense that has held two good offenses. Lose to the Packers and the model's hedge becomes the story.
The matchup record is a team that has lost the two games it was not supposed to lose and won the three it was. We gave Detroit 82 percent against New Orleans, 74 in Buffalo, 68 against the Jets, 76 in Carolina and 84 in Arizona. Three wins from nearly four expected is under the projection, and both losses were road games against teams the model had well below the Lions. The market opened Detroit at twelve wins. Our model sat a win over it in July and sits a half-win over it now. The lean is the offense, which is the best in the league by 75 points. The hedge is a defense that has given up 29.6 a game, and the Packers game on Sunday is the first test of whether that number is who the Lions are.
