Looking Ahead

So Washington's election record moves a little closer to 100% this week, with them losing and the incumbent party getting the boot. The election return was not a big surprise of course, but the Skins getting dominated so badly by the Steelers defense was not entirely expected. I'm a bit worried with Roethlisberger potentially out, but if Pittsburgh's D keeps playing that way, they can beat anyone.

I'm looking ahead with interest this week though, to Thanksgiving Thursday, and a potential matchup between an 11-0 Titans team and a 0-11 Lions team. Obviously, either team could blow their perfect (or very much imperfect) season before then, but the matchup would certainly provide a little bit of intrigue to what will otherwise be a totally uneventful game with the Lions' only national audience of the season. So, what needs to happen for us to get there?

Detroit has the Jags at home this week who shouldn't take them for granted because they just screwed up doing exactly that against Cincy last week. Then they go to Carolina who might be looking ahead to a tougher stretch of games against teams who are all currently at .500 or better. However, Detroit is so lousy on the road that I doubt they pick up a win even if the Panthers are looking ahead. Finally, Detroit will host Tampa with the chance to get to 0-11. The Bucs are on their bye this week and then face the Vikings at home, so they should be well rested going into Detroit and with them in a tight battle for their division, Gruden will have them playing hard. I put the odds of 0-11 for Detroit at about 85% with my only hesitation being some resurgence under new QB, Daunte Culpepper. Bringing in the new QB might be just the kick in the pants that the Lions need to pull of a surprise win or two before this season is out.

Tennessee has a tougher road to get to that Thanksgiving game still perfect though. They go into Chicago this week where I fully expect them to get the win. I mean really, the Bears almost lost to Detroit. Could they really be that tough? With Orton hurt now, I don't give the Bears much shot at winning until he comes back. Next week though, the Titans have to go into Jacksonville to face the most Jeckyl and Hyde team in the league. With the Jags be the crappy team who lost to the Bengals last week or will they get their running game going again and play like the pre-season Super Bowl pick that a lot of people thought they were? My guess is that this could be the one that trips Tennessee up. Finally, the Titans host the Jets in the final week before Thanksgiving. I think the Tennessee defense does a lot more damage to Brett Favre and his interception stats and they come through this one clean. So I'll put the odds on them staying perfect a little lower than Detroit ... say, 60%. The Jacksonville game is going to be the toughest, but the longer you stay perfect, the more every team will be gunning for you. They'll definitely be in tough through this stretch.

The only thing I can very confidently guarantee is that if the two teams meet at 0-11 and 11-0, you can tick those numbers forward to 12.