There’s a phrase in boxing and mixed martial arts called “fighter math” that played into how some of us perceived the Monday Night Football matchup going into it. When two pugilists are scheduled to fight and they’ve had a common opponent in the past, “fighter math” happens in situations where one fighter might say, “Oh, well, I’ve beaten this fighter whose beaten you, so I should be able to beat you.” It’s an oversimplified formula, which is why it’s so often a disastrous assumption.
Fresh off the Browns stunning the Packers, there was some temptation to think that, because the Packers had made easy work of the Lions in Week 1, fighter math might apply.