All the way back in August we decided to do something new. We took the Lions offense and we attempted to predict the statistical output at quarterback, receivers, tight ends and running backs. The plan was always to come back after Week 18 and see how close we got. Here we are. Let's take a look and see if the Lions met, fell short of or overcame expectations:

Passing

Player	Completions-attemps	Yards	TD-INT
Goff preseason projection	430-644	4,775	36-7
Goff final stat line	407-605	4,575	30-12

Ok, Goff threw the ball a lot less than we thought he might. That run game really came on strong. Still, It wasn't that far off. 40 extra throws. That's one game against a really good run defense away from happening. 

That run game really did change things for the Lions pass game. We thought it would be good, but as you'll see when we get to the rushing side of projections, we didn't think it would be this good. We over predicted everything on Goff this season becasue of that. 

The interceptions wound up being a lot worse than we though it would be. He nearly doubled the amount we predicted. We chose seven because at that time, he had finished three seasons with seven interceptions. He was also approaching the NFL's record for most consecutive passes without an interception. 

Receiving 

Ok, here is my pride and joy prediction and you might have already seen this one on Twitter. I'm gonna hang this one on the refrigerator.

Player	Receptions	Yards	Touchdowns
St. Brown projection	115	1,516	10
St. Brown final stat line	119	1,515	10

I honestly don't know how I did this. I do remember that I went back and forth on like four different combinations that I was going to go with. This one felt like the most realistic. Turns out it was.

How about one that I, and probably everyone else was super wrong about? Check it out.

Player	Receptions	Receiving yards	Touchdowns
LaPorta Projection	42	448	5
LaPorta final stat line	86	889	10

Seriously, this is just not normal. The way we got LaPorta's projection was to add up the final stat line of 27 different rookie tight ends that were drafted in the first and second round. Then we added a little extra because he had a good camp and we thought he would go over the averages. Instead he had one of the best rookie years a tight end has had in NFL history. 

Now, let's take a look at the rest of the group: 

Player	Receptions	Yards	Touchdowns
Jameson Williams projection	55	612	6
Jameson Williams final	24	354	2
Josh Reynolds projection	45	543	3
Josh Reynolds final	40	608	5
Kalif Raymond projection	44	445	2
Kalif Raymond final	35	489	1
Jahmyr Gibbs projection	50	525	5
Jahmyr Gibbs final	52	316	1

There's a world in which Jameson Williams hits those numbers. That's a world where the NFL season started like four weeks ago when the Lions started using him a lot more. 

We're calling the Josh Reynolds projection a win. It wasn't St. Brown levels of accurate, but it was pretty close and I'll call it a win and day of the week. Twice on Sunday. 

We got the receptions end of things right on Gibbs and the yards things right on Raymond. We just missed on the yards for Gibbs and the receptions for Raymond. We also thought Gibbs would be used more in the pas game when it came to touchdowns. He just got the one. 

Rushing

Player	Rushing yards	Touchdowns
David Montgomery projection	1,126	10
David Montgomery final	1,015	13

Close-ish. We thought he'd go over 1,000 yards and he did. We thought he'd get at least 10 touchdowns and he did. 13 is a lot nicer than 10. If Montgomery doesn't miss three games, he likely shatters our projections and he's statically sitting along side Christian McCaffrey right now. At least in terms of production on the ground.

Player	Rushing	Yards
Jahmyr Gibbs projection	765	6
Jahmyr Gibbs final	945	10

Gibbs saw our projection and beat the hell out of it. Here's the crazy thing. We did a mid-season look in at the projections and Gibbs was only at 399 yards and two touchdowns at the time. He ran for 546 yards and eight touchdowns in the final nine games of the year. The guy had a very Amon-Ra St. Brown like rookie year. Where he just got hot at the end of the year. we'll see if he keeps it going into the future like St. Brown has. I project that he will. 

This was fun. We'll do this again next year. 

The Lions luck out on the road again in 2024

The Detroit Lions 2024 opponents were set last night after the Bills win over the Dolphins. Aside from that Bills win likely keeping the Lions out of Brazil next season, the Lions got some more pretty good news in terms of their away schedule. Let's take a look at the full slate of 2024 opponents:  […]