Detroit Lions don't need an elite defense, just an average one. Can they get there?
The Detroit Lions have given up 38 points in two of their last four games. The Bears — THE BEARS! — scored 26 on them this past Sunday.
If not for a last-second field goal and a last-minute touchdown the last two weeks, the Lions would be 6-4 facing very different questions than they are now.
These are immutable facts.
But facts deserve context, and while the defense hasn’t been great lately, or even for most of the season — and that’s reason to worry if you’re a congenital worrier; or if you’re a longtime Lions’ fan — the facts aren’t as worrisome if we change the context.
For example, the Lions rank 22nd in overall defense, allowing 22.9 points per game, a fraction behind the Cincinnati Bengals. This is obviously below average. Too far below for a Super Bowl contender, although a handful of teams have won titles with even lower-ranked defenses.
GET YOUR TICKETS: Lions playoff tickets are becoming available soon: What you need to know
Those teams — the 2006 Colts (ranked 23rd), the 2011 Giants (ranked 25th) — played in a different offensive era. Teams score more now, and no team has won the Super Bowl in the last five years with a defense ranked in the 20s.
So, yes, the Lions rank is concerning. Consider, though, the ranking of last year’s champs — the Kansas City Chiefs. They came in at No. 16.
Which leads us to this question: Is it possible for the Lions to move up from No. 21 to the middle of the pack?
Sure, it is, but they’ll need some health luck.
Right now, they are missing their second-best pass rusher and their best safety. It’s possible that both James Houston and C.J. Gardner Johnson will return before the end of the season. If they do, that’ll help stabilize the front and organize the back.
Even if neither returns, or if they return and aren’t the same as they were before their injuries, there is still another way of measuring the Lions defense.
A LOOK BACK: Lions haven't been 8-2 since 1962. Here's how good that team was.
DVOA is an acronym for defense-adjusted value over average, which basically accounts for the strength of an opponent’s offense. It’s a helpful number because it considers what an opponent’s offense had done and what it is expected to do.
In this metric, the Lions rank 10th, with their passing rank just outside the top 10 and their run defense just inside of it.
This is passable.
Is passable good enough to win shootouts in the playoffs?
Maybe. Maybe not. But it’s not like the Lions can’t compete.
Why?
Because the offense is elite. Only Miami averages more yards per game. Only Miami, Dallas and San Francisco, Philadelphia and Baltimore average more points per game.
NFL POWER RANKINGS: Eagles solidify standing as best team, but Lions still in the mix
But even here the difference between the teams is minimal. Miami and Dallas score 30 points a game. The other three teams score 27 points a game, and so does Detroit.
Of these, only the Dolphins are more explosive, and it’s not by much. When the Lions are healthy, especially up front, and have David Montgomery, they are as good, and certainly as balanced, as anyone, which is to say their offense is good enough to win it all.
It helps that offense is what wins in the NFL these days. This doesn’t mean defense is irrelevant. Of course, it isn’t.
No team makes a run in the playoffs without at least a few playmakers on defense. Guys that can wreck a drive or force a turnover.
Speaking of turnovers, the Lions are minus-2 on the season. They’ve given the ball away more than they’ve taken it.
That they are 8-2 despite this is another sign the games they are winning aren’t a fluke. Last Sunday is the latest example.
Four times the Lions handed the ball to the Bears. Twice in their own territory. And yet they gave up only 10 points.
Now, you can say: But it’s the Bears! They stink.
In some ways, you’d be right. But they also got better recently, adding a good pass rusher. They also got back Justin Fields, who played as well as he had all season.
No, this wasn’t just because of the Lions’ defense. Fields is a load to bring down and he threw as well as he ever has. He deserves some credit.
And while it’s easy to point to the offensive explosion the last four minutes of the game, and easy to point to Jared Goff’s calm and Jameson Williams’ speed and Montgomery’s bruising running and say: that’s why they won!
I’d say: that isn’t the only reason.
JEFF SEIDEL: How did Lions pull off stunner? They've got the right DNA, and real good players.
Yes, the Bears were too conservative during their penultimate drive and that helped the Lions stop them. Yet the defense made a few plays, and not just Aidan Hutchinson’s safety at the end of the game.
Any time a team holds an offense to 10 points after four turnovers, then the defense shows something. Maybe it’s not much more than spunk and opportunism, sure. Then again, maybe what we watched Sunday was a defense displaying a sense of the moment.
“Our defense put out the fires,” Dan Campbell said Monday, after he’d watched the film. “I thought our defense did some really good things. Certainly, at the end of the game, that sequence with just under four minutes was pretty big, so.”
The Lions are young defensively. This means they can still get better these next seven games.
At their best, even if they are healthy, they are average. Yet average is good enough when the offense is cooking like the Lions’ offense can.
They don’t need the defense to dominate. They just need the defense to make a couple plays and get the ball back to the offense.
Do that, and there are few places this team can’t go.
Contact Shawn Windsor: 313-222-6487 or swindsor@freepress.com. Follow him @shawnwindsor.
Next up: Packers
Matchup: Lions (8-2) vs. Green Bay (4-6).
Kickoff: 12:30 p.m. Thursday; Ford Field, Detroit.
TV/radio: Fox; WXYT-FM (97.1).
Line: Lions by 7½.
This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Detroit Lions' defense a work in progress, but offense is elite
