Chiefs and Lions fluked their way to being good

The College Football Playoff has finally been decided, so mercifully we don’t have to hear the phrase “eye test” for a while. It’s a useful term to apply to the NFL to explain just how weird this season has been, however. Look at the top of the division standings, or close to it: By the eye test, do the Texans look like a division-winning team? Are the Falcons seriously still in first place? Are the Giants really 8-4?

The Lions and Chiefs have been two of the most surreal. The Lions’ win over the Saints on Sunday was their first in which they didn’t trail in the fourth quarter. The Chiefs beat the Falcons because safety Eric Berry picked off Matt Ryan’s two-point conversion pass and ran it all the way back, giving the Chiefs a shocking 29-28 lead.

The Lions lead the NFC North, much to the chagrin of “experts.” The Chiefs are second to the Raiders in the AFC West, but if they can take first they’ll be in position for a first-round bye in the playoffs. The Lions could, too, with a little help, which would mean advancing to the divisional round for the first time since 1991.

The Chiefs ranked eighth in DVOA entering Week 13, while the Lions ranked 25th (!). Neither has an offensive or defensive unit that ranks better than 13th.

The question then is: When do we call a team good? With just four weeks left in this season, we should know what these teams are, and at face value these teams could go a ways in the postseason. The Chiefs are the fourth-best team in the NFL by record, and the Lions are roughly sixth.

Advanced stats don’t like them much, however, which implies that they’re flukes.

The Chiefs’ last five wins have been decided by five points or less. Their last two were delirious affairs decided by a doinked field goal at the end of overtime and Berry making one of the rarest scoring plays in football, respectively. In four of their wins, their opponents had win probabilities above 99 percent at some point during the game.

The Lions have been subsisting off the magic of Matthew Stafford, who leads the NFL with seven game-winning and fourth quarter comeback drives. They have three wins in which their opponents had a 99 percent chance of winning during the games. In fact, this week’s win over the Saints was the only one that felt at all comfortable. The Lions’ offense and defense have been alternately good and bad — the former because Stafford functions best when Lions fans are in a state of abject panic, the latter because of injuries at every level.

Pro Football Reference estimates teams’ expected win-loss record, which means what their records should be given their points scored and allowed on the season. The Chiefs’ expected wins are seven and the Lions 6.6, which means that, together, they have created nearly four wins more than they should have.

This is all academic, of course. The Lions and Chiefs are where they are, and they will happily keep winning games no matter how overrated you may think they are.

The Lions have now won more games this season, with four weeks to play, than in all but two seasons since 2000. The Saints were 5-6 and in third place in the NFC South, and still entered Sunday’s game as 7-point favorites.

Confidence is a real thing that engenders success. Regardless of how good the Lions and Chiefs actually were when they pulled out some of those improbable wins, they are playing better the more they come to expect success. The Lions played their most complete game of the season against the Saints, holding the NFL’s most prolific offense to 369 yards and 13 points while Stafford threw for 341 yards and two touchdowns. The Chiefs are used to this now after reeling off 11 straight wins last season before losing to the Patriots in the playoffs.

“Fake it until you make it” works well on an individual level, and it plays out at a team level, too. We’ve seen late-surging team like the 2010 Packers, 2007 Giants, and 2007 Steelers win Super Bowls as No. 6 seeds because they jelled at the right time. Maybe they finally got healthy, or found an offensive line combination that worked, or swapped out their old offensive coordinator for a better one — whatever the spark, the important thing is they were in position to fully capitalize when they found it.

Teams rarely look the same at the beginning of a season as they do at the end, anyway. The Lions and Chiefs have may have fluked their way to winning records, but that doesn’t mean that our first impressions of them will be our last. Judging a team by one eye test is foolish.

That also means we can’t get too excited yet. This is a reaction to one week, and things may look completely different in a month. If you’re a fan of the Giants, Falcons, or Eagles (for example), you’re likely panicking about the postseason after a bad Sunday, but those teams have all looked great at times — arguably as good as anyone at their best — and are still in position to play in January, especially with an upswing.

Everything is coming up Lions and Chiefs (and Raiders, and Steelers, and Buccaneers) right now. Who knows where all this winning will lead. Maybe they’ll actually get “good” and become one of those nightmare playoff teams you’ve heard so much about.