Lions-Buccaneers preview: An opportunity to save face

The Tampa Bay Buccaneers play the Detroit Lions on Sunday. The latter hope to come closer to a playoff spot, perfectly reasonable with a 6-6 record right now. The former have been officially eliminated from the playoffs, as far as we can tell.

Still, the Bucs will want to win—to save their coaches, to earn their paychecks, and because no one likes to lose. So let’s preview the game.

Reviewing the Lions’ last four games:

Cle 24, Det 38 W

Det 27, Chi 24 W

Min 30, Det 23 L

Det 20, Bal 44 L

From Detroit’s last four games, it looks as though they beat the teams they are supposed to beat and lost to the better teams. That is probably why they are a .500 team. The Lions’ offense has been averaging 27…