The Lions win the award for weirdest home/road pre-game splits.
But there’s something pretty unusual in those splits. In 8 home games, the Lions were underdogs by an average of 4.6 points. In 8 road games, the Lions were underdogs by an average of 3.9 points. Given that home field advantage is usually worth 3 points, you’d expect a team to be favored by about 6 more points — on average — in home games than in road games. But the 2019 Lions were actually favored to do better on the road than at home! That is exceedingly rare: it has only happened a handful of times in the last 40 years.
So, what happened? You might think this has something to do with Stafford, but that’s not really the case: he was healthy for 4 home and 4 road games. Here are the full season results:
| Rk | Tm | Opp | G# | Day | Result | Spread |
vs. Line | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | DET | NYG | 7 | Sun | W 31-26 | -6.5 | not covered | |
| 2 | DET | @ | WAS | 11 | Sun | L 16-19 | -4.0 | not covered |
| 3 | DET | @ | ARI | 1 | Sun | T 27-27 | -2.5 | not covered |
| 4 | DET | LAC | 2 | Sun | W 13-10 | 1.0 | covered | |
| 5 | DET | MIN | 6 | Sun | L 30-42 | 2.5 | not covered | |
| 6 | DET | @ | OAK | 8 | Sun | L 24-31 | 2.5 | not covered |
| 7 | DET | @ | GNB | 5 | Mon | L 22-23 | 3.5 | covered |
| 8 | DET | @ | PHI | 3 | Sun | W 27-24 | 4.0 | covered |
| 9 | DET | CHI | 12 | Thu | L 20-24 | 5.5 | covered | |
| 10 | DET | TAM | 14 | Sun | L 17-38 | 5.5 | not covered | |
| 11 | DET | @ | CHI | 9 | Sun | L 13-20 | 6.0 | not covered |
| 12 | DET | KAN | 4 | Sun | L 30-34 | 7.5 | covered | |
| 13 | DET | DAL | 10 | Sun | L 27-35 | 7.5 | not covered | |
| 14 | DET | @ | DEN | 15 | Sun | L 17-27 | 9.5 | not covered |
| 15 | DET | @ | MIN | 13 | Sun | L 7-20 | 12.0 | not covered |
| 16 | DET | GNB | 16 | Sun | L 20-23 | 13.5 | covered |
Provided by Pro-Football-Reference.com: View Original Table
So let’s investigate why the Lions were favored to do better on the road than at home, and begin in the division.
NFC North Games
Against the Bears, Stafford missed both Bears games, so let’s begin there. The Lions were 6-point road dogs in week 10 and then only 5.5-point home dogs three games later on Thanksgiving. This may be partially QB-related: Driskell, the second-string quarterback, started the road game and Blough got his first ever start in the home game. Perhaps the Bears were a slightly tougher opponent, too: Chicago was coming off a three-game losing streak before the game at Soldier Field, and off of a win before the Thanksgiving game.
Against the Packers, Stafford played in the road game and missed the home game, which helps explain some of the discrepancy. On the other hand, he plyed in the home game against the Vikings but missed the road game, so that balances things out. The Lions were 3.5-point road dogs early in the season to the Packers and then 13.5 point home dogs; against the Vikings, Detroit was a 2.5-point dog at home and a 12-point dog on the road. For Minnesota, both lines make sense, given the fact that the Vikings were a playoff team and whether or not Stafford appeared. If you adjust for home field, the line essentially moved 3.5 points for Stafford being out. That number is probably artificially low because Vegas wouldn’t want to make a conservative, run-heavy team like Minnesota a two touchdown favorite.
But the Green Bay line change is pretty weird. That line moved from basically an even game on a neutral field with Stafford (Detroit +3.5 in Lambeau) to a 16.5-point game on a neutral field (Detroit +13.5 at home) without Stafford. In the first game, Davante Adams was injured, and the Packers were not yet considered a great team; that game was viewed as a toss up on Monday Night Football, and it turned out to be one. The rematch was in week 17, when the Packers were playing for a first round bye and the Lions were playing for nothing. Had the venues been reversed, I think the lines don’t change very much.
To recap, against the NFC North, Stafford played in 2 of 6 games, one at home and one on the road. In the three home games, the Lions were underdogs by a total of 21.5 points. In the three road games, the Lions were underdogs by a total of 21.5 points. But this is driven in large part by playing a third string QB at home against the Bears, and facing a much tougher Packers team at home in week 17.
AFC West Games
Detroit played at Oakland (w/ Stafford) and at Denver (without), while being at home against the Chargers (with) and the Chiefs (with). The Denver (+9.5) and Oakland (+2.5) lines make sense, and while the Lions were lucky to have Stafford for the two home games, they were against considerably harder opponents. At home against the eventual Super Bowl champion Chiefs, the Lions were 7.5 point home dogs. And the Lions faced the Chargers in week 2, when they were 1-0 and coming off of a 12-4 season; Detroit was a 1-point home dog. So in two road games against the AFC, the Lions were an average of 6 point underdogs, and in two home games, the Lions were an average of over 4 point underdogs. But this obscures that the two hardest games were at home, which is just randomness. That obviously contributed a bit here to the Lions home/road Vegas splits.
NFC SOS Games
By virtue of finishing last in the NFC North in 2018, the Lions were scheduled to play the last-place teams in the NFC South (Tampa Bay) and NFC West (Arizona) in 2019. The Lions faced the Cardinals in week 1 on the road with Stafford, and the Bucs at home without Stafford. Against the worst team in the NFL in 2018, the Lions were 2.5-point road favorites in week 1 with Stafford. Against a Bucs team that was coming off a 3-game winning streak, the Lions were home underdogs with Blough of 5.5 points. That’s an 8 point swing going from a road to a home game, which is really like a 14-point swing! Part of this is Stafford, and part of this is the tougher opponent. Had these situations been reversed in any way — playing the Cardinals at home, or later in the year, or without Stafford — the lines would have been very different.
When we thinking of a team having 8 home games and 8 road games, you assume the schedules would be similar in strength. We see here that over small sample sizes, that assumption does not hold up.
NFC East Games
Finaly, the Lions played the NFC East. Detroit was home to the Giants (6.5-point favorites, with Stafford) and the Cowboys (7.5-point dogs, without) and on the road against Washington (without, 4-point dogs) and Philadelphia (with, 4-point dogs). There’s not much to talk about here, as this all seems reasonable: Detroit was underdogs by a total of 1 point at home and 8 points on the road in these games, which is consistent with how we’d expect things for a normal team. The home opponents were probably viewed as tougher than the road opponents, which explains why the delta was about 7 points and not 12 points.
Summary
There was nothing going on at Ford Field last year to cause Detroit’s weird home/road splits. Instead, a bunch of random events conspired to give us the extremely unlikely outcome of a team being favored by more on the road than at home during the season. The Lions had tougher opponents at home (Chiefs, week 2 Chargers, Cowboys before the late season collapse, week 17 Packers) than on the road (week 1 Cardinals, Redskins, Broncos, early season Packers). Detroit was also forced to start its third-string quarterback in 5 games, with 3 of them coming at home. That was enough to cause this crazy split.