DETROIT LIONS
Six in Four: From the title of this section, you’d think a 6-4 record isn’t quite bad. Well, that’s not a record, that’s how many wins (6) the Lions have tallied on the road in the last (4) years. Six in four. That’s not the recipe for a winning football team. Maybe Jon Kitna would have rethought his playoff-promise prior to this season if he would have done a little historic research. The Lions haven’t been great in Detroit (13-19), but have been twice as bad on the road.
Over or Under: It’s surprising when you look at it at first. The Lions have shown a problem finding the over. For a team known nowadays for their dynamic offensive approach, the Lions are only 29-34-1 O/U over the last 4 seasons. In reality, only one of those seasons had Mike Martz leading their team (last year), but even in ’06, with a defense known for giving up points, the Lions were only 9-7 O/U. They started off hot (after their first game 6-3 loss to the Hawks), scoring lots of points and giving up even more, on way to busting the over in 4 of their first 5 games. Soon after they couldn’t get anything going, failing to achieve the over in 5 of their next 6. The end was more like the beginning, as Detroit hit the over in 4 of their last 5 contests. Be careful with the Lions, but this streaky team can provide an easy bet.
Against the Spread: In 2006 the Detroit Lions only managed 6 wins ATS, and 4 of those were at home in Detroit. But, over the last 4 seasons, the Lions have hovered right around .500 ATS, going 32-31-1 over than time period. They’re a game over .500 at home ATS, and exactly .500 on the road. In 2003-’05, the Lions never finished under .500 ATS.
Straight Up: If the Lions are indeed to make Jon Kitna look like a smart man, or even a fortune teller, they’ll have to make quite the improvement from last season. The Lions only managed 3 wins in 2006. 3 is a long way from 10. The last 4 seasons haven’t been much better, as the cellar-dwelling Lions have collected only 19 wins. That’s under 5 wins per season. Gross. In those 4 forgettable years, the Lions have never managed more than 6 wins, meaning Detroit has treaded through double digit losses for quite some time, 2000 was the last time Detroit finished with less than 10 losses.
Divisional Downer: Its been a long time since the Lions finished atop their division. Over the last 4 seasons, the Lions are a miserable 5-19 against their NFC North foes. In fact, the Lions have never won the NFC North, since it was changed from the Central following the 2001 season. And since the NFC Central began in 1970, Detroit has only finished atop their division thrice, their last being in 1993. Its been a while. The Lions are 10-13-1 ATS against the rest of their division over the last 4 seasons.
