Saturday, September 19, 2009

Lion in wait?

So...the Lions.

We should win. It should be fairly easy. Right?

And, while it's a mostly meaningless stat, the last time Brett Favre lost to the Lions in a home game was -- never. He's 16-0 at home all time against Detroit, even if all those games took place in Lambeau Field. And Barry Sanders won't be suiting up in Honolulu Blue tomorrow.

But we remember last year. We remember the Vikings escaping the Lions with a pair of close victories, 12-10 and 20-16. And nobody wants to be "that team," the one that the Lions finally break their 18-game losing streak against.

(The record for consecutive losses is 26, set by the 1976-77 Tampa Bay Buccaneers. If the Lions keep losing, then they'll be on a 25-game losing streak and looking to tie the record, in week 10 against -- you guessed it -- the Vikings.)

It should be fun to watch Matthew Stafford run for his life from the Viking defenders, hopefully never finding sufficient time to hook up with Calvin Johnson. Yes, the Lions scored 28 points last week, but that was against what can only charitably be called a "defense," or whatever it is that New Orleans puts out on the field when its opponents have the ball. The real Vikings defense -- discounting a punt-return TD and a garbage TD when most of the starters were out -- only allowed two field goals against Cleveland last week, and one of those came after the Browns got a short field on the failed surprise onside kick at the start of the game (which I don't think was an awful idea).

So we should stifle what passes for the Detroit offense. And Adrian Peterson should run wild. And Brett Favre should look like the Brett Favre of old, playing the defense like a pinball machine.

So why do I feel so nervous?

1 comment:

Justin said...

having been at the detroit/no game last week, i should caution you that detroit's offense only gained 231 yards. They had scoring "drives" of 13 yards (TD), 6 yards (FG) and a fumble return TD.

The first two were set up by a punt return and a kick return, both inside the saints 15 yard line.

In other words, if special teams is a weakness, then you may see some long returns today.