Dave Caban shares his baseline 2024 projection for the Detroit Lions while also considering the impacts of increases/decreases to market shares and team play volume.
Every offseason, I undertake the process of creating projections for every team. In previous years, this involved developing a projection that I believed would represent the average performance of all relevant players if a given season were played out thousands of times. This year, I have added steps to better understand how a player’s fantasy scoring could increase or decrease if changes in his market shares or his team’s play volumes were considered. Although my projections will inevitably have some large variances from actuals, this process will allow us to better understand a player’s potential upside and downside. (Quarterbacks were not included in this process as more nuance would be required and this exercise felt like one more suitable for the other positions. If time allows, I will home in on something similar for passers.)
Team Level Considerations
My baseline projection positions the Lions as a league-leader in overall play volume. Specifically, it places the team in the 80th percentile of passing and 58th percentile of rushing based on my 2024 projections set when this article was published. Detroit ran 75 plays more than the league average in 2023, and 38 more than the league average in 2022.
