Patriots have scored 21 two-minute points on drives worth 6 expected

The most surprising number in the brief is the two-minute drill. Mike Vrabel's Patriots have run 8 two-minute drives and scored 21 points. The expected total on those drives is 6. That is a gap of 15 points, and it sits beside a Clock IQ score that ranks the team poorly.

21 points: the two-minute drill is beating its expectation

Expected points measure what an average offense would score from the same field position and down. Against that baseline, New England has taken 15 more points than the situations normally give. Few finishing numbers in this brief are that large.

The clock management around those drives is weaker. Vrabel's Clock IQ score is 38 out of 99, 25th among 32 teams. The Patriots burn 0.44 timeouts per game, against a league figure of 0.75, a difference of 0.31. That is a team holding timeouts in reserve, not one spending them cheaply. In Detroit, the question is whether the late-half scoring holds at this rate or falls back toward the 6-point expectation. Clock IQ

74%: three-quarters of the cap is on the field

New England has spent $299.2 million against a league cap figure of $314.6 million. Of that, 74 percent is attached to players who are playing. The team ranks 23rd of 32 in Paid vs Played value.

The unused portion is plain. Injured reserve holds $48.5 million. A further $29.5 million belongs to players who are healthy enough to be listed but are not taking snaps. Together that is $78 million of the sheet.

The contrast is at receiver. Ryan Miller carries a $0.17 million cap hit, in the 1st percentile for pay, and plays 8 percent of the snaps, in the 75th percentile. A.J. Brown is the reverse: a $7.04 million hit puts him in the 87th percentile for pay, and his playing time sits in the 37th. Receiver snaps are the number to track against the Lions. Paid vs Played

4.6 deserved wins: the 5-4 record is close to honest

The Patriots are 5-4. Deserved Standings puts them at 4.6 wins and 4.4 losses, so luck accounts for 0.4 of a win. That is a small correction.

The conference rank does not move at all. New England is seventh in the real standings and seventh in the deserved table, inside the playoff field on both. The record is not inflated enough to explain the 21-point two-minute total or the cap picture. Margin shows the same trend: the team is 0.4 points per game better than its opponents in real results and 0.4 worse in the snaps-based view. A game decided by a single score in Week 10 would not surprise anyone who has read both tables. Deserved Standings

51.5: the total is 5.8 above what similar weather has produced

The Patriots play at the Lions in Week 10 at FC Bayern Munich Stadium, with a Sunday kickoff of 9:30 AM ET on Fox. The forecast is 44 degrees, wind at 2 miles per hour and a 0 percent chance of rain. Those are calm conditions.

The closing total is 51.5. In 393 games since 2000 played in similar weather, the average is 45.7 points, and 47 percent went under. The gap between the total and that average is 5.8 points. Detroit is a 2.5-point favorite, and both figures are context only. The weather will not take away possessions, so the two-minute drill and third-down work on both sides carry the game. Weather Ledger