Niners vs. Lions: A Feast for an Old Fan
Tomorrow morning Pacific Time, the San Francisco 49ers (4-1) and the unbeaten Detroit Lions (5-0) square off in Detroit. At this moment, at least, I intend to be in church when the game starts and to come home and watch it from my DVR after it has ended. No guarantees. The Church of the NFL may yet beckon me with temptation beyond my endurance.
But the real reason I think the Niners are likely to win Sunday is that long winning streaks are really tough to sustain in the NFL. The Lions are a good team, a much-improved team and I think they'll give SF fits a good part of the day, trying the defense particularly. But when it's all over, I expect the Niners to win by 5+.
I grew up a Lions fan. As a young sportswriter, I covered the Lions. I was on the sports staff of the Pontiac (now Oakland) Press the year the long-time iconic Sports Editor, Bruno Kearns, worked tirelessly to get the city of Pontiac to build the stadium that lured the Lions out of Detroit and into suburbia. From the time I left Detroit until I landed in the Bay Area in the late 70's, I was a die-hard Lions fan. And that meant supporting them through some horrible, horrible years.
But I have always believed that when you relocate, you need to adopt the local teams, so I became a 49ers loyalist and I have remained one ever since.
So for me this game is going to be wonderful no matter how it turns out. I expect a really great game, but I think the Niners might win this one by more points than most folks think.
The last time the Lions were 5-0 was in 1956. They faced the Niners for their sixth game and defeated the gang from SF. I was 11 at the time but I remember the game from the newspaper accounts.
But the Niners have won the last five meetings between these two teams, having outscored Detroit almost 2-to-1 (115 to 62).
I think the Lions depend far too heavily on the long game and the 49ers are far too good deep on D to give up many long plays for the Lions to stand a real chance in this one. There are a number of key stats I watch that all favor my Niners, most important of which are the Niners much higher-rated defense (they're 2nd through 4th in the stats categories while the Lions are in the bottom third on all three) and their better takeaway ratio (+10 to +7) even though Detroit is good enough to be tied for second in the league.
But the real reason I think the Niners are likely to win Sunday is that long winning streaks are really tough to sustain in the NFL. The Lions are a good team, a much-improved team and I think they'll give SF fits a good part of the day, trying the defense particularly. But when it's all over, I expect the Niners to win by 5+.
