Week 7 Monday Night Lions-Buccaneers & Seahawks-Texans: Advanced Reviews

Both home favorites win and cover on a very defensive Monday Night Football slate

The adjusted scores quantify team play quality, with emphasis on stable metrics (success rate) and downplaying higher variance events (turnovers, special team, penalties, fumble luck, etc). Adjusted expected points added (EPA), in conjunction with opportunity-based metrics like total plays and drives, projects adjusted points. Adjusted scores have been tested against actual scores and offer slightly better predictive ability, though their primary benefit is explanatory.

All 2025-2022 and historical Adjusted Scores and other site metrics are available in a downloadable format to paid subscribers via Google Sheet.

Find previous advanced reviews here

** Adjusted Scores table:

• “Pass” - Pass rate over expectation (based on context of each play and historical averages

• “Success” - Success rate on offense, a key metric in adjusted score vs actual

• “H & A” - Home or away team

DET (-6) vs TB

It was an underwhelming offensive showing for two units that were ranked in the top-8 in EPA efficiency going into this game. Neither team broke the 40% mark in success rate (percentage of plays with positive EPA), both finished with negative EPA per play, and even the Lions productive rushing attack didn’t perform consistently well (29% success rate).

The Lions drove offensive production via big plays, specifically big runs from Jahmyr Gibbs. The speedster running back had the biggest EPA gain play of the night on his 78-yard touchdown in the second quarter (+6.2 EPA). Gibbs’ other high-value plays were a 30-yard scamper on 2nd & 10 in the first quarter (+2.4) and a 4th & 1 conversion (+2.1). Outside of those plays, the Lions rushing attack was mostly neutral in value, but helped grind out the win. Gibbs finished with 136 yards and two scores on 17 carries. Gibbs was also the most valuable option for the Lions passing attack when targeted: three times for 82 yards (+6.4 EPA).

But the biggest story was the inability for the Bucs passing game to get going, or you could say the ability of the Lions defense to shut them down. Baker Mayfield threw 50 passes but only totaled 228 yards (4.6 YPA), was sacked four times and threw an interception. The Bucs dropback efficiency was driven down even further after adding in a post-catch fumble by Sterling Shepard and a few fourth down failures. The Bucs ran the ball efficiently, but only had 11 designed runs to 57 dropbacks.