Minnesota Vikings at Detroit Lions Line
The Minnesota Vikings (2-10) will try to avoid a fifth straight loss when they visit the Detroit Lions (7-5) Sunday.
There is currently no line for this game as odds makers wait on the status of Minnesota’s Christian Ponder and Adrian Peterson. Both players are currently listed as questionable.
Ponder suffered a hip injury in last week’s 35-32 home loss to the Denver Broncos, and Peterson has been out since suffering an ankle injury in Week 11.
The Lions will be the favorite. The question is how much they’ll be favored by.
Ponder completed 29 of 47 passes for 381 yards with three touchdowns and two interceptions last week. Eight of those completions, including two of the touchdown tosses, went to Percy Harvin, who led the team with 156 receiving yards.
Toby Gerhart led the way on the ground with 91 yards on 21 carries.
The Lions have dropped five of seven since starting the season 5-0. They fell 31-17 on the road to the New Orleans Saints last Sunday night.
Matthew Stafford connected of 31 of 44 pass attempts for 408 yards with one touchdown and one interception.
Nate Burleson led the team with 93 receiving yards on five catches.
Maurice Morris hauled in the touchdown pass.
Kevin Smith led the team with 34 rushing yards and a touchdown on six carries.
The Lions, who rank fifth in the NFL with 281.3 passing yards per game, should be able to move the ball through the air against a Minnesota defense ranked 26th against the pass with 252.2 yards allowed per game.
In the shadow Aaron Rodgers, Drew Brees and Tom Brady, Stafford is quietly having a strong season. He is fifth in the league with 3,527 passing yards and fourth with 27 touchdown passes.
The biggest knock against him is his 14 interceptions, 10 of which have come in the last four games.
Stafford torched the Lions in a 26-23 overtime win in Minnesota on Sept. 25. He completed 32 of 46 passes for 378 yards with two touchdowns and no interceptions as he helped erase a 20-0 deficit.
The Lions have now won two straight in the series since losing six in a row from Dec. 2, 2007 to Sept. 26, 2010.
The Vikings are 7-3-3 against the spread in the last 13 in this series but are 0-3-1 against the number in their last four games and 1-7-1 against the number in their last nine versus the NFC North.
The Lions are 2-5 against the spread in their last seven contests but 10-4 against the number in their last 14 home games.
As far as the total is concerned, the under has been the play. These two have finished under the number in six of the last seven and each of the last four in Detroit.
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