Pride of Detroit
The Detroit Lions face off against the Cincinnati Bengals this week, and as 10.5-point road favorites, it looks like the Lions could be on track for another multi-touchdown victory. But is this matchup really that lopsided? Let’s take a closer look in our Detroit Lions Week 5 preview and prediction. It’s On Paper time!
Detroit’s passing chart may not look as green as you’d expect, especially considering that Week 1 “disaster” actually falls right within the Packers’ defensive averages. But it turns out the defenses of the Bears and Ravens aren’t that good, while the Browns’ passer rating average is surprisingly high.
Still, for the season, they’re regularly outperforming averages (remember: positive percentages are good for the offense, negative percentages are good for the defense). And in terms of raw numbers, this passing attack is putting up mostly top-five numbers:
The key to Detroit’s recent success is their pass protection. The Lions have not allowed a sack in three games, have the 13th-best pressure rate allowed (32.6%), rank 14th in pass block win rate, and 13th in PFF’s team pass blocking grade. When kept clean, Jared Goff ranks fourth in EPA/dropback (0.47), third in passer rating (131.4), second in passer rating (81.4%), second in completion percentage over expected (+10.6%), and first in passing touchdowns (nine).
Not only has the Bengals defense been pretty bad against the pass this year, but they’ve been bad against teams that aren’t particularly good at passing the ball. By passer rating, the Bengals haven’t faced a passing offense ranked better than 21st. By yards per game, no opposing offense currently ranks better than 16th.
Things look a little better when you look at the raw data (because it doesn’t take into account strength-of-opponent).
To rank in the bottom half—sometimes in the bottom third—against these poor passing attacks is a concerning sign for Bengals fans.
What’s even worse for this particular week for Cincinnati is their pass rush. They rank 25th in pass rush win rate, 26th in PFF grade, 28th in pressure percentage, and tied for 24th in sacks.
If there’s one thing they’re okay at, it’s coverage. They rank 18th in PFF’s coverage grade (57.6), with corner/nickelback Dax Hill leading the way (70.3).
Player to watch: Hill vs. Amon-Ra St. Brown. Hill is capable of playing the outside and in the nickel position, which means he’ll likely be lined up opposite St. Brown early and often. St. Brown has been damn-near impossible to stop, but Hill will be one of his bigger tests so far.
Advantage: Lions +2.5. While my scale goes from 0-5, sample sizes are too low for me to push beyond a 3.0 in advantages here. My...
