Will 2024 be the year for the Detroit Lions?
They were the highest scoring team throughout their first 10 games, but will it be enough to win a Super Bowl?
IMAGE: Detroit Lions players celebrate their win against the Chicago Bears with a turkey drumstick after winning 23-20 on Thanksgiving Day at Ford Field in Detroit on Thursday, Nov. 28, 2024. (Kimberly P. Mitchell, Detroit Free Press)
A quick apology for not sending a newsletter last week - I took a bit of time off after working on a story for the ABC ahead of the AFL draft about how clubs assess injury risk and why certain players slip down the pecking order. If you missed that story, you can read it here.
Earlier this month Jaymz Clements wrote an article for CODE Sports about how the eternally disappointing Detroit Lions were now the current favourites to win the NFL’s Super Bowl.
The Lions have had an incredibly strong start to the 2024 season, winning 10 of it’s first 11 games to hold the #1 seed in the NFC going into its Thanksgiving game against the Chicago Bears.
The men in Honolulu blue continued their 10-game winning streak with a 23-20 victory over the Bears. Today’s victory was largely thanks to Chicago’s coach (Matt Eberflus) and quarterback (Caleb Williams) failing to call a timeout in the dying stages of the game, despite the Bears being in a position to send the game to overtime – if not win it outright – before time expired.
Clements highlighted many reasons why the Lions are achieving such unfamiliar levels of success this year but focuses on one point in particular – their high-scoring offence.
Through the first 10 games of the season Detroit scored 336 points, including back-to-back home games putting up 52 points (a 52-14 win over the Tennessee Titans in Week 8, and a 52-6 win over the Jacksonville Jaguars in Week 11) and three wins by 35 points or more (the two 52-point games, plus a 47-9 win over the Dallas Cowboys in Week 6).
The Lions’ 336 points through the first 10 games of a season is the most over that particular span since the Baltimore Ravens scored 341 points in the same number of games in 2019.
It is the equal twelfth highest number of points scored during the first 10 games (tied with the Arizona Cardinals, who put up the same number of points at the start of the 2015 season), and well short of the 411 points scored by the New England Patriots in their first 10 games of the 2007 season.
But does the Lions’ form to this point of the season guarantee Super Bowl success?
Of course not, and history suggests the Lions will have a hard time bringing the Vince Lombardi Trophy to the Motor City for the first time (note: Detroit won four NFL championships prior to the AFL-NFL merger in 1970, most recently in 1957).
The table below displays how well the team that had scored the most points in their first 10 games of the season ended up performing.
Only four of the 25 previous teams that had scored the most points in the league through their first 10 games went on to win the Super Bowl that season. There have been a greater number of teams that have lost in a Divisional Playoff game (nine) than have lost the Divisional Championship (five) or Super Bowl (four).
But one thing that does bode well for the Lions (which Clements also alludes to) is how well they are performing on the defensive side of the ball. While the Lions are ranked first in terms of points scored, they are also at the pointy end of things when it comes to their defence (with respect to the number of points they have conceded).
Their +159 point differential (336 points scored, 177 points conceded) has only been beaten three times since 1999 – the 1999 St Louis Rams, the 2007 Patriots, and the 2009 New Orleans Saints. All three teams made the Super Bowl, and two of them won (the Patriots lost 17-14 to the New York Giants in what is considered one of the biggest upsets in NFL history, after the Tom Brady-led team went undefeated in the regular season).
I, like many people, hope that the Lions can continue their winning ways. It has been encouraging to see how head coach Dan Campbell (who won the 2009 Super Bowl as a player with the Saints) has developed the team since his appointment ahead of the 2021 season.
Things got off to a rocky start for Campbell in Detroit, who failed to register a win in his first 12 games as coach and only won three games during his first season. The following year was a tale of two half-seasons, going winning one of their first seven games in 2022 before saluting in eight of their last 10 to finish with a winning record (9-8).
The Lions started the 2023 season in a much stronger fashion than the previous two, registering eight wins in the first 10 games before ending the regular season with a 12-5 record (tying the franchise record for the number of wins in a season in the process).
Detroit, currently sitting atop the NFC with an 11-1 record, will be hoping to set a new franchise record over the next five weeks, with the Green Bay Packers (home), the Buffalo Bills (home), the Bears (away), the San Francisco 49ers (away), and the Minnesota Vikings (home) still on the schedule.
The timeframe of this stat is limited based on what data are freely/easily available and/or accessible. Please don’t hesitate to contact me if you spot any errors in what I have presented.