Information Sourced From: Pro Football Reference, PFN, FTN DVOA
A Work In Progress
As some of you may know, I work in Information Technology, so it was only a matter of time before I spent some time trying to crunch numbers and come up with a good way to show how teams match up against each other with my own flare. I began with raw stats from Pro Football Reference, PFNs Impact Index, and DVOA rankings from FTN. I used a little AI magic with the math and below is a draft chart that appears to have correct data averaged / normalized from multiple sources (Let me know what you think in the comments, and please feel free to challenge the data). I’m hoping to make this weekly breakdown I provide for you.
The Stats
I see nothing overwhelmingly surprising here. We all know the Lions offense has been producing with the best of them. 6th does seem about right, and I think they can run above that if they can cure their first quarter woes. While the Panthers are technically putting up more passing offense, some of the metrics are weighted, so their offense comes out ranked at 14.5 (working on fixing the .5 rankings). Their bookend tackles being on IR won’t help, and the status of Monroe Freeling for Sunday night will be important to ensure their offense performs to the rank.
The Lions being the 30th in defense doesn’t surprise me much at all, and based on what I understand of Carolina, 16th seems reasonable. The Lions do have a chance to take a step up here based on defensive injuries on the Carolina side. If the Lions promote someone like Nick Whiteside and see continued contribution from Ennis Rakestraw their defense could improve. While, with injuries, the Panthers are extremely likely to take a step back.
Special teams are not that surprising. I mean Jack Fox and Jake Bates are doing well, but the return game was a bit lackluster until last week with Jacob Saylors busting onto the scene. Both teams have converted all their field goals this year. While the Panthers are going for field goals more often, that could be considered a good or a bad thing.
Finally, the Panthers are averaging about 17 yards more penalty yards on average. That could be an important number in a game that could easily turn into a shootout.
At the end of the day I actually see this tilting Lions more than I thought, with the Panthers injuries being the difference maker. However one stat… if you can even call it that, has me spooked. The last time the Lions won at the Carolina Panthers was October 24, 1999. They have lost the following at Carolina:
September 15, 2002: lost 7 - 31
December 21, 2003: lost 14 - 20
November 16, 2008: lost 22 - 31
September 14, 2014: lost 7 - 24
November 22, 2020: lost 0 - 20
December 24, 2022: lost 23 - 37
This era of the Lions seems to be one of breaking curses. They have won playoff games. They have set records. They have broken out of being the perennial losers as it stands. Can they break the curse? It’s not a stat… really, or is it? You decide.
As a life long Cubs fan, they managed to win it all after 108 year drought. Really hoping it won't take that long for me to see the Lions win it all.
By all the Gods if the Lions are said to be a better team than last year, this is a game they should win. The only way they lose is if they beat themselves. The numbers are nice to look at but the only stat that will matter is the win-loss numbers and whether they are good enough to make the playoffs. After that unless the "D" is vastly improved, it'll be lights out.