Week 9: Denver at Detroit

Hardcore football analysis alert: the Lions are weird. They’re almost impossible to predict and often very enjoyable watch. Weirdest of all, they have benefited from the dubious decision to put their entire season in the hands of a strong-armed, fanatically devout quarterback who looks like a cross between an Easter Island head in football pants and an inaccurate model of early man. Early on, that quarterback – Jon Kitna, who prays as often as most people breath through their nose – was basically allowed to wing the ball downfield on every play. The results were sometimes good and occasionally very good – he went 20-for-24 and 247 yards in a huge Week 4 comeback win – but always, it seemed to us, this ride was doomed to end with some sort of Kitnian flameout. And then it got weird, again.

After an embarrassing road loss in Week 6, the Lions came back from their bye and played an efficient, ball-control offense in dispatching Tampa Bay in Week 7, then kept it mistake-free (Kitna was 24-for-35, for 268 yards) in a Week 8 win over the Bears. Leave aside the baseline strangeness of doormats-to-a-generation Detroit sitting at a fairly deserved 5-2 and there’s still something odd afoot here. A team with an understaffed defense, barely-there running game and a quarterback most notable for prominent brow ridges and ostentatious Christianity is actually looking like a favorite most weeks.

Their underutilized running game will probably get quite a workout against Denver. The Broncos have the worst rushing defense in the NFL – they’re giving up 166 yards per game – and a very talented secondary, which means teams usually pound the ball against them. It has, with few exceptions, worked out pretty well for whomever’s playing the Broncos, and it would be the obvious way to go here for the Lions. But despite the tentative return to form of Lions feature back Kevin Jones, who ran for 105 yards in Week 8 to give the Lions their first 100-yard rushing game of the season, running the ball isn’t really Detroit’s style. Jones should do well, but the Lions will probably put the ball up 35 or so times because that’s just what they do. Their receivers can play with anyone, and with ace Broncos corners Champ Bailey and Dre’ Bly gimpy for this game they should see some favorable match-ups.

And this is the part where we’d usually write something like, “which is good, because they’ll need to score a lot of points.” But here’s more weirdness: take out two games in which the Lions defense just didn’t show up – that would be a 56-21 loss at Philly and the 31-3 loss at D.C. in Week 6 – and the Lions defense has actually been quite good. No NFL team has more takeaways than do the Lions, and they snared three picks in the end zone in Week 8 against the Bears to save a narrow victory. Detroit’s personnel are not as impressive as other teams’, and certainly not as strong as Denver’s on paper, but it’s working. Somehow.

While the Broncos offense has shown flashes as Jay Cutler starts growing into those John Elway comparisons, this is still an oddly inconsistent unit for a Mike Shanahan team. We make fun of Shanahan a lot, but he’s a pretty decent coach and has won a lot of games. Injuries have hurt Denver both at receiver – where Javon Walker and Rod Smith remain out of order – and running back, where a banged-up Travis Henry will likely return this week. Still, as their running game has sputtered without a healthy Henry, the Broncos have alternated between good games (their 31-point outburst against an excellent Steelers defense in Week 7) and not-so-good games like last week’s anemic 13-point effort against the Packers. By the numbers, they shouldn’t have a very hard time moving the ball against Detroit, which ranks 28th in the NFL in yards-allowed.

Numbers, though, have kind of failed as an explanatory metric as regards the Lions this season. It’s not that we don’t feel strange doing this, but we’re going to put our faith in the faith-based quarterback this week.

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