Lions season outlook, week 13

The one Sunday each year where I'm guaranteed not to have to worry about the Lions playing. Of course, it turns out to be a Sunday where the only game I picked wrong was my 1-point game. (I also picked Detroit to beat Green Bay because why not? I still won this week. Back off.) Detroit had its chances, but once again, they made too many mistakes against a better team. A win would have been huge, but instead, they're faced with the prospect of falling a game behind Chicago and Atlanta with both teams having tiebreaker advantages against them.

Massey projections:
Week 13: at New Orleans, underdog (moved down)
Week 14: Minnesota, heavy favorite (moved down)
Week 15: at Oakland, slight favorite (moved down)
Week 16: San Diego, heavy favorite
Week 17: at Green Bay, heavy underdog

Tossups are 50%; slight favorites are up to 3-2 (60%), then favorites up to 3-1 (75%), then heavy favorites up to 5-1 (86%), then overwhelming favorites. Slight underdogs are down to 2-3 (40%), then underdogs down to 1-3 (25%), then heavy underdogs down to 1-5 (14%), then overwhelming underdogs.

Trending down because of the loss and other teams' performances. Minnesota and Green Bay are both in the 85-86 range (in opposite directions, of course). San Diego is on the verge of being an overwhelming underdog. Expected wins are down to 9.64, and that will probably fall again if the Saints win Sunday night, as is expected given their dominant performance Monday night against the Giants.

The Playoff Odds report is below:
Mean wins: 9.7, down 0.6
Playoffs: 52.4%, down 14.6 points
Division title: 0.1%, down 5.0 points
NFC title: 2.0%, down 1.7 pointsSuper Bowl win: 0.7%, down 0.9 points

The mean wins drop due to Detroit not winning a game they had a roughly 50-50 chance of winning; the division and top-seed odds plummet because the loss locks Detroit out of first, barring some forfeits; the rest simply reflects a Detroit loss. They can't afford many more of those.

Again, playoff odds reflecting the loss of key QBs:

Mean wins: 9.6, 0.1 lower
Playoffs: 55.1%, 2.7 points higher
Division title: 0.1%, same
NFC title: 1.9%, 0.1 points lower
Super Bowl win: 0.9%, 0.2 points higher

Similar to last week, with the playoff odds higher because of Cutler and the Super Bowl odds higher because of Schaub and now Leinart. Not sure why the mean wins are lower.

I thought it would be a shootout, but the defenses stood tall, especially Green Bay's. If that isn't the case Sunday night, this could get ugly. The one blowout loss this year came in a game when 21 points were scored without the defense on the field; the Lions have yet to be rolled by an offense. Of course, they haven't faced a strong offense on the road since the Dallas game, and in that game, they were terrible in the first half. I don't think New Orleans will help them out in the second. Saints, 31-20.

Last week: predicted 24-39, actual 15-27

Current mood: expecting the worst