Ah, blame it on the schedule

By Os Davis  |   Sunday, June 01, 2008  |  Comments( 2 )

Detroit Lions
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As in too many of the last 50 years of football, Detroit Lions fans were again left disappointed by their team’s fate last season. What made 2007 particularly egregious for their backers was the complete and utter collapse suffered by the Lions after jumping out to a seemingly playoff-bound 6-2 start.

But was the great 1-7 second-half dump really a collapse? In seeking reasons for the ignoble flip side to Detroit’s amazing jump, gridiron philosophers have blamed well-worn abstract reasons from “lack of experience” all the way to the “culture of losing” that supposedly rules teams like the Lions. (To be sure, guys like Shaun Cody and Ikaika Alama-Francis still feel the pain of that 5-0 loss to the Dallas Cowboys in the 1970 divisionals a couple of decades before they were born and thousands of miles away from their hometowns.)

The answer is a lot simpler, however. Just consider the schedule – and then laud the NFL’s timetable creators for a particularly clever job done for 2007 in general.

Despite the widest range in individual team performance ever in the era of the 16-game schedule – the New England Patriots were 15 games better than the Miami Dolphins – the classic bell curve that typically defines the statistical distribution of team records held, and 13 of 32 teams finished in the 7-9 to 9-7 win-loss range. Two of those teams made the playoffs: 9-7 Washington sneaked in as No. 6 seed in the NFC, while Tampa Bay’s 9-7 record was kept artificially low as the team was essentially on cruise control for the last month of 2007 after wrapping up the lowly NFC South way early.

As you’d expect, most of the marginal 13 were limited to their .500-level performance thanks to subpar performance against playoff teams. With no team, though, was that more apparent than with the Lions. Stripping away notation of home field and even the opposition team’s name leaves us with the '07 Lions facing teams in the season’s first half that would ultimately end up at 4-12, 8-8, 8-8, 7-9, 9-7, 9-7, 7-9, 7-9 and 8-8. During that run Detroit was taken apart 38-3 by Washington apparently after having read too much positive press; however, the Lions did post their single most impressive (and legitimate) win of the season by beating the playoff-bound Buccaneers 23-16

Meanwhile, the second half saw the Lions facing teams of 8-8, 10-6, 13-3, 8-8, 13-3, 11-5, 4-12 and 13-3. Showing its true colors, Detroit managed to eke out a single win again hapless Kansas City in the run, putting in a brutal 1-7 finish. What did the bandwagon jumpers expect?

Now, certainly the league schedule-makers are not supposed to prognosticate or metaphorically hedge bets on teams for the upcoming season, but come on. Putting Detroit’s games at Oakland, vs. Minnesota, at Washington, vs. Tampa Bay, vs. Denver and at Arizona – teams common wisdom expected little from in 2007 – all within the first nine games while leaving vs. Dallas, at San Diego and both Green Bay games until the second half? Such a fortuitous itinerary seems more than merely mathematically conveniently placed in order to give another team a fighting chance at the playoffs (and continued home sellouts) for as much of the season as possible.

Unfortunately for the faithful, the NFL schedule-makers appear to have been even crueler to the Lions for 2008. As a result, the Lions may again tease, but the fade should come sooner.

While not making any specific predictions on individual teams, few expect much from Atlanta, San Francisco and Chicago in 2008; the Lions play all three in the first four games. With a win over Green Bay in Detroit in Week 2, kicking off Week 6 with the Lions at 4-0 doesn’t feel improbable at all. Things veer sharply into the dangerous thereafter, though, and the schedule-makers certainly knew it.

Weeks 6 through 10 are an inverse of the first five, with the Lions facing three games – at Minnesota, at Houston and vs. Jacksonville – against opponents reckoned to be on the upswing, if not playoff-ready. The always forgotten Jags should be, what, 6-2 by the time they meet Detroit? Plus, always dangerous Washington’s in there (at home, thankfully for the D.C.-cursed Lions), and at Chicago is on the slate for Week 9.

And act three may end up the most dramatic of all. For some of this stuff, the subplots can be written without too much stretch right now. After Week 11 at Carolina – and who can tell you what the Panthers will ever do? – Detroit plays against Tampa Bay and and Tennessee within five days of each other, with the Titans the guest for Thanksgiving. Both opponents will probably be pulling out all the stops at this point in the season as fellow marginal teams fighting for their playoff lives; also, the Lions haven’t won the Turkey Bowl since 2003.

Closing things out: vs. Minnesota, at Indianapolis, vs. New Orleans, at Green Bay. Again, it’s early, but that smells like a 1-3 run. In 2008, just about any NFL team not named the New England Patriots or possibly the Dallas Cowboys could well drop three against that lot.

All in all – and even the most conservative of football futurists would agree – it appears the easiest run on the entire Lions’ dance card is at Cincinnati, vs. Cleveland, bye, and at Buffalo, i.e. Detroit’s schedule for August 17-28.

Further disclaimers regarding the viability of full-season predictions in June aside, the Lions would appear to have again been given the opportunity to get out of the starting block quickly, but the big boys will be nipping at heels early and often thereafter. And if you’re one of those faithful souls who gets caught up in the hype of the 4-0 and/or 5-1 and/or 7-2 Detroit Lions only to be let down later, well, blame it on the schedule-makers.

Insights into the NFL throughout the year at RealFootball365.com, whether vs. divisional rivals or at a pushover.
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About Os Davis

Os Davis has taken a twisted route to get to RealFootball365.com in his nearly 17 years in professional writing, working in any number of capacities in the sportswriting, news reporting and film criticism worlds. In print media, Os has served as editor at a few publications, including Albuquerque's ...
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