Detroit Lions Bold Prediction of the Week: Defense rebounds against Vikings

The Lions have been bad. I’m sad. There’s not much else to describe it. It hurts to see the offense consistently stepping up, especially under such dire personnel circumstances, only for the defense to let games slip away over and over again.

This defense has made Daniel Jones look competent, given up six touchdowns at the hands of Mitchell Trubisky, and even surrendered 19 points to a Washington team that was coming off of a 17-quarter-long touchdown drought and starting a rookie quarterback with a baddd case of the jitters.

It’s gotta get better eventually, right?

Bold prediction of the week: Lions defense holds Vikings offense to <20 points

The Minnesota Vikings offense has finally found their groove under offensive coordinator Kevin Stefanski, and the re-emergence of Dalvin Cook has allowed Kirk Cousins to look like the man who single-handedly kept Washington alive for several seasons earlier this decade. They’ve only been held to less than 20 points once in their last eight games, but perhaps that changes Sunday.

The Lions defense has been very bad both by the statistics and by the tape. They’re not lacking personnel—not for Matt Patricia’s scheme, at least. Most of this roster is an upgrade from the defense of 2018. That being said, it’s hard to point out what’s been going wrong, especially considering the hot start the defense had to begin the season.

With so many consecutive bad showings under their belt, I’m just going out on a limb here and saying that the mathematical concept of regression to the mean owes the Lions a good game, and I’m betting it happens Sunday.

The only tangible evidence I have to support this is that the Vikings are coming off a short week after playing at Seattle on Monday Night Football, while the Lions have essentially had a mini-bye week after playing early on Thanksgiving. The Vikings are also likely to be without star receiver Adam Thielen, but he was also out for most of the first game between these two teams and it didn’t stop the Vikings from scoring 42 points.

Perhaps the rest, and the math, will give the Lions the defensive edge they need Sunday. If not, I hear there’s this really great defensive end over at Ohio State who’s entering the draft this year...