Are the Lions on pace with pre-season stat projections?

Yardbarker

Back in August I sat down and made a projection on what the Detroit Lions offensive stat lines would look like at the end of the season. The plan was to come back to it twice. Once at the bye and once at the end of the year. Here we are at the bye, now it’s time to check in to see where we’re at on those projections. Let’s get into it. 

Passing

Player Attempts Completions Yards Touchdowns INT

Goff Full Projection

644

430

4,775

36

7

Goff At Bye

293

200

2,174

12

5

Ok, starting off with Goff. He’s well on pace to do everything that we projected him to do in August. He’s been very good this year except for the occasional interception. Each one of those have looked less like a problem and more like this weird lapse in judgement. He’s largely been money outside of those picks. He’s averaging a career best 68.3% completion percentage. 

There’s nine games left in the season. Here is what Goff will have to do in them to match the preseason projection. 

Player Attempts Completions Yards Touchdowns INT

Jared Goff

351

230

2,601

24

2

That’s pretty doable. He’s really have to step up on the touchdowns end of things and back off on the interceptions. If he’s going to do this, his per game stat line has to look something like this to pull it off. 

Player Attemps Completions Yards Touchdowns INT

Jared Goff

39

26

289

3

0

That’s not out of this world. I thought he’d be throwing a lot more touchdowns, but the Lions have been pretty run heavy this year. He might not hit that touchdown number. I also realize now that I might have added way too many attempts. As far as passing yards, that shouldn’t be an issue. Goff is already averaging 271 yards per game. We’ll see at the end of the year where this shakes out. 

Receiving 

Player Receptions Yards Touchdowns

St. Brown Projection

115

1,516

10

St. Brown Bye

57

665

3

St. Brown is also well on pace to hit these projections. The place he’s going to have some trouble sat is the catches. At least that’s the way it seems. If he wants to catch up on catches, he’d have to get seven a game. That’s not too off base. He’s had at least six in every game this year except one. Here’s what St. Brown would have to do to hit the projection as well as what he’d have to do per game. 

Player Receptions Yards Touchdowns

St. Brown

58

851

7

St. Brown per game

7

95

1

Seven catches for 95 yards and a touchdown per game is very doable for St. Brown. Right now he’s averaging 8 catches and 95 yards a game. Let’s see where this goes.

Player Receptions Yards Touchdowns

Jameson Williams

55

612

6

Jamo at Bye

6

71

1

Yeah, I don’t know if this going to happen. I really thought at the time that Williams would be a bigger part of the Lions offense in 2023. Since he’s come back, he’s barely been used. There’s still nine games left. If he’s going to catch up, he’s going to have to come out of the bye as a part of this teams offense. I just don’t know if that’s going to happen. He’d have to get six catches for 61 yards a game and five touchdowns. Right now I just don’t see it. 

Player Receptions Yards Touchdown

Josh Reynold

45

543

3

Reynolds at bye

22

397

3

Reynolds is going to surpass the projections. I didn’t think that he was going to be this big a part of the offense going into the season. I thought the Lions were going to utilize Kalif Raymond and Marvin Jones more. Reynolds has been great this season. 

Player Receptions Yards Touchdowns

Jahmyr Gibbs

50

525

5

Gibbs At Bye

28

165

0

Gibbs might seem pretty behind on the projection here, but he’s not that far back. He just needs to get three catches for 40 yards per game in the next nine games. He might not hit that touchdown number, but he can definitely will hit the catches and yards portion. 

Player Receptions Yards Touchdowns

Kalif Raymond

44

445

2

Kalif At Bye

18

231

1

Raymond can also hit his projection this year. Still, it feels like Raymond should be a bigger part of this offense. With Donovan Peoples-Jones coming in, that might affect things. We’ll see.

Player Receptions Yards Touchdowns

Sam LaPorta

42

448

5

LaPorta At Bye

43

434

4

LaPorta has already started passing some of the projections. The way we got LaPorta’s number was that we averaged out the rookie numbers of the last 26 tight ends taken in the first two days of the last 10 drafts. LaPorta putting up numbers that just aren’t normal for rookie tight ends. I look forward to seeing what he’s at when the year is over. A strong chance he could win Rookie of the Year.

Rushing

Player Yards Touchdowns

David Montgomery

1,126

10

Montgomery At Bye

385

6

Believe it or not, Montgomery can hit his projection if he comes back in Week 10 and stays healthy for the final nine games of the year. He’d have to get 83 yards a game and then score four more touchdowns. That seems very doable. We’ll see though. Jahmyr Gibbs might be a much bigger part of the offense after his breakout play in the last two games. 

Player Yards Touchdowns

Jahmyr Gibbs

765

6

Gibbs At Bye

399

2

If Gibbs wants to hit his projection, he’ll have to rush for 41 yards a game in the next nine games. That seems doable after he just ran for 152 yards against the Raiders on Monday night. I can’t wait to see what he’s able to do in this offense once the Lions continue to open the playbook for him. 

Articles You May Like

Lions’ Ray Agnew expected to receive GM interviews in offseason
Ex-Lions WR Josh Reynolds is now available again
Lions place LB Malcolm Rodriguez, DL Mekhi Wingo on season-ending IR
Lions sign LB Kwon Alexander to help after more injuries hit Detroit’s defense
Don P Reacts to the Detroit Lions WIN Over the Chicago Bears #OnePride

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *