The NFL's Worst Defense, Ever

[snopes]

While their 19-game losing streak tends to hog the spotlight, the Detroit Lions have managed to accomplish an even more remarkable feat. The team's defense has allowed 1,033 points in 34 games — the most since Lyndon Johnson was in the White House.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000...233493218.html

[rujasu]

That's not all on the defense. If Detroit's offense goes three-and-out every time they're on the field (which isn't that much of an exaggeration) then the other team's offense gets more time on the field and more of an opportunity to score points. Detroit's problem isn't just the defense or just the offense -- it's both. The Lions basically are bad at every aspect of football. (Well, I guess they're not too bad at punting, seeing as they have to do it so frequently. )

[Johnny Slick]

That's also a really weird set of games. 14 I can understand, 16 I can see of course, but 19? Why? Just so that some sportswriter can cherry pick a couple games bookended around a really terrible season? I can guarantee you that if the Lions shut out their opponents on the last day of the 2007 season this article would be about Detroit futility over their last 18 games.

[Meka]

Originally Posted by Johnny Slick

That's also a really weird set of games. 14 I can understand, 16 I can see of course, but 19? Why? Just so that some sportswriter can cherry pick a couple games bookended around a really terrible season? I can guarantee you that if the Lions shut out their opponents on the last day of the 2007 season this article would be about Detroit futility over their last 18 games.

19 simply refers to their losing streak, not the other stats. Of course the 20th game will be a win - that's the definition of a losing streak.

As for the 34 games the stats actually refer to, I agree it seems odd at first, but it's simply their stats over the last two full seasons (16 x 2) plus the two games they've played so far this year.

[bjohn13]

Originally Posted by Johnny Slick

That's also a really weird set of games. 14 I can understand, 16 I can see of course, but 19? Why? Just so that some sportswriter can cherry pick a couple games bookended around a really terrible season? I can guarantee you that if the Lions shut out their opponents on the last day of the 2007 season this article would be about Detroit futility over their last 18 games.

I do agree, though I also submit that the extra games around the terrible season tend to become significant once the greater part of a second season is affected. If the Lions start out, say, 0-8, I'll start to give some credence to the fact that the team has lost more than 20 in a row.

[Johnny Slick]

Originally Posted by Meka

19 simply refers to their losing streak, not the other stats. Of course the 20th game will be a win - that's the definition of a losing streak.

As for the 34 games the stats actually refer to, I agree it seems odd at first, but it's simply their stats over the last two full seasons (16 x 2) plus the two games they've played so far this year.

It's still cherry-picking stats to make things look more eXtreme than they really are.

[cdav1313]

Originally Posted by Johnny Slick

It's still cherry-picking stats to make things look more eXtreme than they really are.

Its the Lions. Things are that extreme. You don't have to look too hard to "cherry pick" bad stats.

[snopes]

Originally Posted by Johnny Slick

It's still cherry-picking stats to make things look more eXtreme than they really are.

Really? What subset of games would be more accurately reflective of the quality of recent Detroit Lions teams?

[bjohn13]

So a team wins three games, loses two games, and then goes on a five game winning streak. How many times have you heard an announcer say, "this team has won 8 of their last 10 games" when the only truly amazing part of the stretch is the five wins in a row. Kind of the same concept, no?

[Johnny Slick]

Originally Posted by snopes

Really? What subset of games would be more accurately reflective of the quality of recent Detroit Lions teams?

Last year by itself, perhaps. Or this year by itself, compared with other 2 game starts. The last 18 games only doesn't look like cherry-picking because that's where we are right now. The last 20 games, I imagine, paint a slightly different picture, for example.

[Meka]

Originally Posted by Johnny Slick

The last 18 games only doesn't look like cherry-picking because that's where we are right now. The last 20 games, I imagine, paint a slightly different picture, for example.

Yes and no. Here is the Lions' 2007 schedule. Obviously, the second-last game was a win for them (or we'd be talking about a 20+ game losing streak) but it also follows a six game losing streak. That makes them 1-25 going back to the halfway point of that season, so it doesn't seem all that unfair to tack that one additional loss onto the streak. That said, they did go 6-2 in the first half of the 2007 season, and 7-27 (or 7-25, if we exclude this season's games) while still bad, somehow doesn't seem quite so horrid.

[Johnny Slick]

My point here is that sportswriters engage in this crap all the time. What do the last 19 games tell us that the last 20 or 21 or 22 or 23 or 18 or 17 or 16 do not? Did the Lions do something after Week 16 of the 2007 season that magically transformed them into a pile of steaming crap? I can't remember anything. What's more to the point is that they were really, really bad last year and so far this year they're 0-2. Apparently that's not bad enough to sell papers, though.

Sometimes there is something to be said about combining partial seasons. For example, there was a period in '97 I think when Mark McGwire had been hurt a lot, missing many games several years in a row but hitting a ton of homers when he did play. There was a spot in there where he'd hit something like 65 homeruns in his last 162 games. The nugget of truth to be gleaned out of this was "if Mark McGwire can stay healthy, he has the power to break Roger Maris' record". Of course, Matt Williams had a similar string bookended around the '94 season, so even this is not as important a data point as it was made out to be.

I don't see the relevance here. Combining the first 2 games with the last 16 is semi-okay in that so far the Lions don't appear to be any better than they were last year. 2 games is still awfully early in the season to make that point, though. Adding the last game or 2 or 6 from 2007 makes no sense whatsoever.

[snopes]

Originally Posted by Johnny Slick

I don't see the relevance here. Combining the first 2 games with the last 16 is semi-okay in that so far the Lions don't appear to be any better than they were last year. 2 games is still awfully early in the season to make that point, though. Adding the last game or 2 or 6 from 2007 makes no sense whatsoever.

As has already been pointed out earlier in this thread, the article linked in the OP is about the Lions' record over the last two full seasons, plus the games (two) they've played so far this season.

[Johnny Slick]

And it's *still* problematic from the perspective of using stats to gain enlightenment because football seasons are 16 games long, not 2. I suspect that had Detroit's first 2 games not been against New Orleans and Minnesota, the numbers wouldn't have been so eXtreme.

[cdav1313]

Originally Posted by Johnny Slick

And it's *still* problematic from the perspective of using stats to gain enlightenment because football seasons are 16 games long, not 2. I suspect that had Detroit's first 2 games not been against New Orleans and Minnesota, the numbers wouldn't have been so eXtreme.

Yeah...its too bad the Lions can't play the Raiders every week

[Enchanting_eyes]

Originally Posted by cdav1313

Yeah...its too bad the Lions can't play the Raiders every week

The Lions are playing The Redskins this week, it should be a battle for whose offense is worse in the league at the moment. I think The Redskins defense is a bit better, but the offense is just downright ugly, oh it is just bad.

ETA: To prove how bad The Skins are playing, we booed them the last game, the first home game of the season and we win it, but we booed them off the field. They played so horribly that the fans were just not having any of it, regardless of the win.

ETAmore: The Raiders are kicking butt though. Brees is just having an awesome year and personally even with the schedule they have this year, they really are just tearing up the field, man those were great games to watch and so shall the future ones.

E*E

[Johnny Slick]

Originally Posted by cdav1313

Yeah...its too bad the Lions can't play the Raiders every week

The fact that they won't play what might be the best offense in the league again and will only face Purple Jesus again just once in their last 14 games might just cause their defensive numbers to improve a bit. Just a thought. Even if Nawlins turns out to be average (which I find very unlikely) the principle of the sample size being too small still applies.

[effo5231]

Originally Posted by Johnny Slick

Even if Nawlins turns out to be average (which I find very unlikely) the principle of the sample size being too small still applies.

But those two games are only a small part of the 34 game sample analyzed.

[Johnny Slick]

Originally Posted by effo5231

But those two games are only a small part of the 34 game sample analyzed.

Why are those two games part of the sample at all? If you want to look at Detroit's feeble defense over the last two years, look at the feeble defense over the last 2 years. The 2 games played so far are being played by a different group of players with a different scheme. If you want to figure out whether or not the Lions will continue to be this bad (btw, I can tell you right now that the answer is "probably not" due to nothing other than regression to the mean) then looking at the last couple years has some merit... but certainly not in a "let's just look at the average points scored" kind of way. If you just want to point out how bad it's been, I'll stand by my point that 34 games, like 18 or 26 or 11, is an awkward number that has little real relevance to the sport.

[Stan The Man]

It's early, but Detroit's up 10-0.