Allen Park — Hope is not a strategy. So sayeth Detroit Lions coach Jim Caldwell. Faith, on the other hand, is a perfectly acceptable reason to believe his team’s run defense will get back on track after getting chewed up and spit out by the Cleveland Browns and Chicago Bears the past two weeks.
Here’s the good news: The Lions won both games, unquestionably the only statistic that truly matters. But the statistics within each contest typically portend to the result, and history shows the Lions’ current formula isn’t sustainable.
In the Super Bowl era, only nine teams have won back-to-back games where they allowed their opponents to rush for more than 200 yards.