Detroit Lions +3.0 (-120) @ Minnesota Vikings
TCF Bank Stadium, Minneapolis, Minnesota
September 20, 2015, 12pm CDT
Minnesota is coming off a disappointing road loss at the 49ers Levi Stadiumlast week. The Viking offense simply could not get going against a defense that has ranked in the top 5 in each of the last three seasons. Minnesota QB, Teddy Bridgewater, completed 72% of passes attempted and recorded 177 yards through the air, but was sacked 5 times and was picked once. In total, Bridgewater's body of work was good enough to capture the 29th spot on the week 1 QBR lineup.
Adrian Peterson's output was also anemic for the Vikings. The highly touted Running Back mustered a pedestrian 31 yards on 10 rushing attempts.
In our favorite power rankings for week 2, Minnesota dropped three spots to #26, and their FPI (a measure of the average difference between the Vikings and a typical NFL team) slid from -0.8 to -3.0.
The Lions' power rankings trajectory is also downward after falling to the Chargers in week 1. Detroit slipped from marginally better than average in week 1 to a half-point below average heading into play Sunday.
The Motor City squad jumped San Diego in the early goings last week and found themselves up 21-3 in the second quarter. But then Philip Rivers and the SoCal crew rattled off 30 unanswered points to reclaim control of the game. While Detroit would manage another final touchdown in the fourth, the Chargers never looked back and the dramatic turning of the tide proved insurmountable for the Lions. The final score read 33-28, San Diego.
As both teams lost in disheartening fashion last week, it seems appropriate that our FPI-based power rankings technique sees this game as a virtual toss-up against the spread (after adjusting for Minnesota's home field advantage). Similarly, one of the simulation routines we employ also sees these teams as perfectly evenly matched when the Lions and Vikings meet at TCF Bank Stadium in Minneapolis this weekend.
The other computer prediction model in our stable of primary indicators gives the Vikings a half-point edge -- not nearly sufficient to cover the 3 point spread. Thus, our three go-to gauges are synchronized in highlighting 2-3 points of value for Detroit takers.
Supplemental power rankings systems on our radar likewise favor the Lions. In fact, a composite comprised of our preferred FPI model, Elo ratings-based power rankings from FiveThirtyEight.com, TeamRankings.com's power ratings system and the work of Massey-Peabody not only forecasts a Detroit cover, but calls for a narrow Lions win straight up. Further, each factor in the composite agrees on the ATS outcome. This system was 4-0-1 last week all individual factors were singing from the same hymn book.
Also, per VegasInsider, the Vikings were installed as 3 point favorites when betting lines opened earlier this week. Since then, flows Detroit's direction have compressed the spread to the 2/2.5 ballpark. This movement forms yet another support for our bias in favor of the Lions to cover, Steven Xu (2013) concluded 1) that movements in football betting lines serve to eliminate mispricings, and 2) that closing lines are unbiased estimators of actual game results. This fairly recent finding fits with the existing body of research on this matter (see here for a slightly more thorough literature review).
Bottom Line: In line with strong prognostications from our primary and supplemental tools, as well as from the betting market itself, we expect this game to be considerably closer than the betting line suggests -- an upset is a distince possibility. As such, we are quite content to take the underdog and the points here.
Happy betting!!