By Conor Perrett
Football is back early this week with an evening matchup which sees the regular hosts of Thanksgiving, the Detroit Lions welcome Super Bowl contenders Buffalo Bills. Being Thanksgiving, it’s a nice opportunity to take time to be thankful and put your feet up for football.
So get the food ready and read up here!!!
Detroit Lions (4-6)
Power Rankings – 17th
DVOA Rankings: Offence – 10th, Defence – 25th, ST – 12th: Overall – 16th
The Lions have not been a competitive team for over 30 years, so any sense of hope they can get from success, their fans are grateful.
But his rebuild has felt more promising than the previous ones. Last season Detroit decided to clean house with a new General Manager, coaching staff and a new bunch of players. They traded every available asset to prepare for the draft and build through youth. Now in their second season under Dan Campbell, we have seen in the last three weeks the most success from a Lions team since 2018.
They have a tough stigma around them that looks to run the ball hard and cause turnovers. It may not be the prettiest at times but they rarely give up the fight. The reason why this team is under 0.500 though is a lack of playmakers across the field. When building with the youth, it will take time to unravel the playmakers to be consistently successful.
A big question mark will be how this defence fairs against a passing attack like Buffalo’s. From Week 1-8 Detroit’s defence is ranked last in the majority of metrics. In the past few weeks they’ve improved to a defensive DVOA of 11th in that span, but against offences like Packers, Bears and Giants. Two of those teams put their focus towards their run game. How they deal with an elite quarterback and wide-receiver will be interesting and will have a major bearing on the result of this game.
Buffalo Bills (7-3)
Power Rankings – 4th
DVOA Rankings:Offence – 6th, Defence – 3rd, ST – 3rd: Overall – 1st
After playing as the “home” team in Detroit this past week, the Bills will be back at Ford Field looking to win their second consecutive game.
There was a lot to like about Buffalo’s performance on Sunday, as they snapped their two-game losing streak. Buffalo has been the best team in football and if it wasn’t for the occasional turnover problem from Allen and a lack of production from its running backs. Josh Allen eliminated the turnovers that was holding the team back in recent weeks, while the running backs steamrolled a bad Brown’s run defence to 171 yards, with 5.2-yard per carry average.
They are the only team in the league to have all three phases of the game ranked top-10 in DVOA’s rankings. But they’re still fighting for the top spot in the AFC East. With four of their remaining seven games coming against divisional rivals and it being so close, games like Detroit are the type of games they can not afford to slip up in.
Prediction
Despite hosting Thanksgiving annually, the Lions have an abysmal record of four wins in their last 18 games on the holiday. It’s their only real time to get national viewers but have never had their best showing. Their last Thanksgiving win came in 2016.
Hosting the Buffalo Bills won’t help their chances of improving that record by any means. The one thing Detroit has in its favour is Buffalo’s travels. On a short week going back and forward between Detroit and Buffalo, won’t be easy on the Bills squad and a sluggish start could be looking them in the face.
If the Lions stand any chance of winning this game they will have to slow down Buffalo’s offence which is no easy task. Lion’s rookies Kerby Joseph and Aiden Hutchinson have been NFC Defensive Player of the Week two times in the last three weeks, but with a young defence I worry they won’t be able to go step for step with Buffalo.
I see it being a competitive 1st half, but see Buffalo turning it on in the second and edging it towards the end.
Bills 30-24 Lions
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