THE Detroit Lions, who started off the season with a bright and perky five victories, would not qualify for the playoffs if they started today.
The brashness has been knocked out of them. They have lost five of their last seven games and are one of five teams with a 7-5 mark in the NFC vying for the two wild card spots.
The visit of NFC North rival Minnesota on Sunday night should be just the medicine needed for the Lions to roar again.
It has not been an easy season for the Motown mob. They have had injuries in their backfield and their quarterback Matt Stafford is as brittle as the harmony on a soccer team containing John Terry, Wayne Bridge and Anton Ferdinand.
Stafford’s poor streak over the past few weeks has probably had as much to do with a painful finger injury as anything else. It could be the reason he’s thrown 10 interceptions in his last four games.
But his finger has mended and he faces one of the worst pass defences in football. Minnesota are tied for 26th in the league in pass defence (252.2 yards per game) and they have allowed an NFL-worst 24 passing touchdowns.
To make matters worse, they even made Saint Tebow’s and the congregation of Denver look good last week, allowing the pass-challenged quarterback to throw for a season-high 202 yards and two touchdowns. With output like that, Tebow must have thought he was the next coming of Rex Grossman!
With a 2-10 record, the Vikings have long since joined the short list of teams in the 2011 season’s express checkout line.
Minnesota’s strength is their running game. While the rest of his team are playing like a Benny Hill intro, Adrian Peterson still makes the Vikings dangerous. He is hobbling with an ankle injury, though, and with quarterback Christian Ponder having to sit out practice this week the Vikings may not be able to take full advantage of the Lions’ biggest weakness: Stopping the run.
With Peterson, Minnesota are still dangerous. Without him, the Vikings are like Elvis: a big name that doesn’t seem to have a heartbeat anymore. He will face a fitness test, but with the Lions determined to halt the slide, it seems feasible that the Vikings will end with the same success at a loud Ford Field as the average Milham-suggested chat-up line (Oddly, “Just wrap your legs round these velvet rims… and strap your hands across my engines” never really seems to work for anyone other than Sid James in Carry On Cabbie or Bruce Sprinsteen).
The hottest team right now aside from the Green Bay Packers are the Miami Dolphins (No, I can’t believe I wrote that, either).
The Phins have won four of their last five and were it not for an unfortunate and undeserved defeat by a point in Dallas on Thanksgiving Day, they would be starting at the possibility of a six-game winning streak.
It seems that despite an 0-7 start, the players are aiming to do their best to make it hard for the front office to fire head coach Tony Saparano, whom the players adore.
Word has it that owner Steve Ross has already made up his mind, but even he will not have failed to notice that the early-season schedule was brutal. It would be good to think he will give Sparano one more season. Consistency is everything, though it is a fact of life that there are far too many trigger-happy suits with a ‘quick-fix’ mentality.
Things have been a little easier lately for the Dolphins and they face another team going in the other direction on Sunday.
The ‘Dream Team’ Philadelphia have suffered a nightmare season, but don’t say you weren’t told. At the start of the season the Racing Post’s season preview warned: ‘It may not be all rosy. Their defence is undersized, their offensive line – which gave up 49 sacks last season – has yet to prove it can handle the blitz, their pass rush was inconsistent, the linebackers are raw, and new defensive co-ordinator Juan Castillo hasn’t coached on that side of the ball for 22 years.’
(To be balanced, their correspondent could not have got it more wrong tipping the Dolphins for the AFC East at 14-1, but let’s just gloss over that insignificant error, shall we? He’s a handsome guy, after all.)
The Dolphins are asked to give up a field goal on the handicap and that seems fair. The Eagles run the ball well, the Dolphins stop the run. It is strength on strength but the Eagles looked as though they’d packed their bags for the season in their last outing. Take the hosts to cover.
San Francisco 49ers won the NFC West last week but their Super Bowl chances are fairly reflected on the Betdaq outright market. On Friday they were trading at 15.5.
Homefield advantage in the playoffs is useful, so it is interesting to see that they are mere 3.5-point favourites on the road in Arizona on Sunday.
The Niners are two games behind Green Bay for the NFC’s top seed and are a game ahead of New Orleans (who face a tricky trip to Tennessee), so it is unlikely that they will let up.
Arizona are clinging to faint playoff hopes themselves after winning four of their last five, but their one loss in that stretch came in San Francisco – an easier-than-it-looked 23-7 win for the Niners.
Quarterback Alex Smith threw for 267 yards and two touchdowns in that victory last month and even with the loss of linebacker Patrick Willis, the visitors can finally put a fork in the Cardinals’ season.
Suggestions:
Detroit -10
Miami -3
San Francisco -3.5
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