By: Jeremy T. Ballreich
The (9-1) Lions have their 11th contest of the season vs The (5-6) Colts. Indianapolis has been a tale of two teams, but a tale of three quarterbacks, even though Anthony Richardson and Joe Flacco are the only two that started. Much due to the Jeckyll and Hyde differences in the play of one Anthony Richardson. Last Sunday was the first game since pre-injury that AR-15 (Richardson) looked even remotely close to the somewhat consistent start of his rookie year. But it is one game.
His other starts this season have been way less than desirable. As prior to last week, he was boasting the worst completion percentage in NFL History, since Browns failed first pick overall in Akhili Smith (46.6% career completion percentage). Last week was a drastic improvement for AR-15 since he was benched. He completely 66.7% of his passes. Raising this year’s completion percentage to 48.6%.
For the Lions, Jared Goff continues to lead the NFL in completion percentage at 73%, plus 20 TDs, and Nine Interceptions on the season (impressive considering he had Five INTs in one game)! He continues to get himself back into the MVP conversations on the season.
Stellar Oline play, that is another one of the reasons that Goff is having an elite year at the QB position. Frank Ragnow is the second best Center in the league, newly acquired RG Kevin Zeitler is third in the league. Penei Sewell is arguably the best Offensive Tackle in the NFL. On either side of the Offensive line.
The defense this season has drastically improved in three key areas that truly is the mark of a great defense. Third down percentage. Teams are only having a 34.6% success rate on third downs. Red Zone, the Lions have top five RZ defense stopping teams 57.1% of the time. And have the fifth best scoring average against at 17.7 points average.
These stats have increased due to a much improved secondary. Which has only allowed a total of seven touchdowns all year!
The rushing defense continues it’s dominance in the NFL with the second straight year of not allowing teams to rush for over 100 yards total this season. Only allowing nine rushing touchdowns! So seven TDs passing, and nine rushing through 10 games! That’s only 16 total TDs given up! Kudos to Brad Holmes finding the talent for Aaron Glenn’s defense to work!
The dominance travels for the Lions, as they are the only undefeated NFL team this season. They are Five and Zero while traveling this year. I expect that trend to continue.
The Colts defense have struggled to give up chunk plays in both the passing game and the running game. Something the Lions do very well in both aspects of the offense.
If everything goes right:
Lions 38
Colts 14
If it all crumbles to the ground:
Lions 17
Colts 14
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