On Paper is back this week to break down the Detroit Lions’ Week 2 matchup against the San Francisco 49ers. This weekly preview is all about data, and early on in each season, there isn’t all that much to draw from. That makes these early games extremely unpredictable, which can lead to... let’s hypothetically say... a seven-point underdog winning by 31.
But we have a datapoint now! So for this week, we’ll take into heavy consideration last week’s data, but still use 2017 statistics as a reference. We don’t want to overreact to one week, if for no other reason than to protect our sanity.