ALLEN PARK — Detroit may be the second-place team in the NFC North, behind 14-1 Green Bay, but the Lions left no doubt they're the No. 1 team in the AFC West.

By smashing a once-hot San Diego team, 38-10, on Saturday, the Lions swept all four games against the AFC West teams by a total of 109 points. The Raiders gave them a scare in Oakland, as it took a 98-yard drive in the last 90 seconds to win the game. Still the average score of the four games was 40-13.

Jim Schwartz made a little joke about the sweep, while discussing Detroit's most consistently well-played game of the season - when the Chargers were out of the game midway through the fourth quarter.

"We've had some other ones this year," he said. "We rattled off a lot of straight points against Kansas City, 45 straight against Denver, a team that has a chance to win the AFC West - I would like to point out that we did win the AFC West this year."

He continued with his actual point, which was that the Lions have played at a very high level for stretches of games this season.

"Our comebacks against Minnesota, our comeback in the third and fourth quarters against Dallas; the last three quarters against Carolina," Schwartz said, "there were some times where we played about as good as you could play."