Lions fans believe Detroit’s offense needs to prepare for shootout vs. Bills

The results from our latest SB Nation Reacts Survey are in and Lions fans believe Detroit’s offense will need to put up a significant amount of points in order to beat the Bills.

Welcome to SB Nation Reacts, a survey of fans across the NFL. Throughout the year we ask questions of the most plugged-in Detroit Lions fans and fans across the country. Sign up here to participate in the weekly emailed surveys.

In this week’s SB Nation Reacts surveys, we asked Lions fans two questions:

1. Are you confident the Lions are headed in the right direction? (weekly poll)
2. How many points will the Lions offense need to score to beat the Bills?

After four consecutive weeks of landing at 99% confidence, the fan vote dipped to 91% ahead of the Packers game (I am assuming some trolls from Green Bay were flooding the vote), but after taking care of business against their division rivals, that number jumped back up to 98% this week.

As for our second question, we asked fans how many points the Lions would need to score in order to beat the Bills, and after nailing the score last week for the Packers game, I was highly anticipating how the vote would turn out this time around.

With the Lions and Bills being the top-scoring offenses in the NFL (No. 1 and 2 respectively) fans are expecting a shootout. The Lions average 32.5 points scored per game, while the Bills average 30.5 points scored per game. So how many points will the Lions need to score? A whopping 87% of fans believe they’ll need to be close to or above their season average.

Let’s take a look at some of the explanations from the comment section, lightly edited for length and clarity:

• Mic2000: “30 to 35, our defense may get it lower but Allen is playing MVP-level ball right now.”
• Gomers Pyle: “We only needed 32 to beat Green Bay without Alim and Reader and that was with the Coach/Offense giving the Packers 2 short Red Zone fields... Lions don’t give two short fields the Packers don’t score 30... Lions need to dominate TOP again in this game and they will keep the bills under 30.”
• IsLionfan: “Bills are 10-3 and have scored LESS than 30 points in only 3 games. They have scored 30 or more points in each of their last 7 games, including 42 in the loss to the Rams last week. [...] The Lions offense needs to be very efficient, with no TOs and a high red zone TD conversion rate. Lions may need >35 points to win this game. Should be thrilling whatever happens.”

Additionally, SB Nation also ran a national survey asking who would cover the Lions -1.5 spread (it’s now back to Lions-2.5) set by the folks over at FanDuel Sportsbook, and the national audience continues to side with Detroit, with 63% of national fans believing the Lions win and cover.