The Kansas City Chiefs should be able to score on the Detroit Lions defense

The Kansas City Chiefs should be able to score on the Detroit Lions when the two teams meet on Sunday in London and that says more about the Lions defense than it does the Chiefs offense.

The Lions defense is not very good, according to the stats. They do have some individual talent such as Ziggy Ansah who has six sacks on the season and Haloti Ngata who is a presence in the middle of the line. However, the results have not been kind to the Lions, who are ranked 29th in the NFL in defensive scoring at nearly 29 points per game.

Here's how many points the Lions defense has given up in seven games this season: 33, 26, 24, 13, 42, 34, 28.

The totals of 26 and 28 points there came against a common opponent in the Minnesota Vikings, who is the 26th ranked offense and scored 16 points against the Chiefs. Another common opponent is the Chicago Bears, who put up 34 points on the Lions defense. The Chiefs held them to 18 points (yeah, that one still stings).

There's also this:

Offensive coaches aren't the only thing the Lions need to change. Their D has given up an average passer rating of 111.6, worst in the NFL.

— Michael David Smith (@MichaelDavSmith) October 28, 2015

The Chiefs offense as a whole has not been anything better than average since Jamaal Charles went down three weeks ago. They scored 17 points against the Bears (none after Jamaal went out), 10 against the Vikings and then 23 last week. To be fair, that's probably about what I would expect with Jamaal out of the lineup but it also means that they're going to be relying on their defense, which is what has kept them in the past three games.

The Chiefs offense was better last week against the Steelers with 23 points. Considering they were without their best player (Jamaal Charles) and their top receiver (Jeremy Maclin) that's actually somewhat impressive against a good Steelers defense. I'm hoping that carries over to Week 8 in London.

The Chiefs offense hasn't been good enough for me to say that this will be a "get right" game -- and I'm not sure they ever will be totally "right" without Jamaal in there -- but the Chiefs can absolutely score on the Lions defense. With the way the Chiefs own defense has been playing, that bodes well for KC entering Sunday's game.