By now you’ve probably heard the fact that the Detroit Lions have held a lead in every single game this season too many times to stomach it. You’ve probably even read that Detroit has had a fourth-quarter lead in nine of their 12 games.
The fact that the Lions have been especially bad at blowing games—which explains why they’re currently 3-8-1—isn’t exactly news. But analytics website FiveThirtyEight did an in-depth dive into how bad the problem is in Detroit and what exactly at the root of these late-game collapses.
Author Ty Schalter—a Lions fan himself and former contributor to Lions Wire—first started by just marveling at Detroit’s uncanny ability to blow games.