The Waves Be Choppy, Young Rascal
The Detroit Lions are now on the cusp of winning the NFC North. What have we learned?
The NFL season is, by number of games, the shortest in North American pro sports by far. Yet in terms of the seesaw of overarching narratives, it sometimes can feel like the longest. Narratives can come and go over the course of the season in the MLB or NBA/NHL, but you often need a healthy sample size of games to justify that narrative, a period that can take weeks to establish. The sheer number of narratives hatched during one season is lower and general fan sentiment is not quite as volatile.
By contrast, the NFL has the remarkable ability to provide a new narrative each week, and in the modern National Parity League, each week is so competitive that team performance varies widely. The 2023 Dallas Cowboys seem to alternate between looking like Super Bowl favorites for 2-3 weeks in between one week of wretched play. In the NFC North we’ve seen the central narratives around the seasons for both Green Bay and Chicago change multiple times during the season. Teams can look fabulous one week and atrocious the next week. Every week is a new week.
Following the ever-changing narratives and the rollercoaster ride of fan sentiment that is a singular NFL season can induce whiplash that should be attended to by a physician. To take one example, in a group chat of people I participate in, a Lions fan began last week dooming about how Green Bay was going to rally to win the division and ended the week bullish on the Lions’ chances in the playoffs. It is a topsy-turvy season for everyone. If your team is truly elite or terrible, you ride the waves less, but for most teams, it’s awfully choppy.
[Gregory Shamus/Getty Images]
I last wrote about the Detroit Lions on October 17, two months ago and coincidentally the last time that the team had just one narrative about them. The narrative was “the Lions are legit and the best Detroit team of our lifetimes”, built on a 5-1 record with four double-digit wins, a win in Kansas City, and the lone loss being a narrow OT defeat to a 2022 playoff team. It all seemed to line up and I did my best to describe the exceptionally sugary fan sentiment at the time, which was inspiring Lions fans to travel all over the country to follow the team. My takeaway was that because the team was in the top eight or so in the league standings with a very easy schedule ahead, they deserved to be discussed among other bona fide Super Bowl contenders.
I don’t know if that sentiment was necessarily wrong based on everything that’s happened since. Hype and optimism is still very high and the Lions are still in the upper quartile (~8 teams) in the league. Whether that constitutes a “contender” is a matter of vernacular perhaps, and how wide you visualize the contender tier of the league being. I didn’t think at the time that the Lions were superior to San Francisco and still don’t, but they are clearly a good team that can make noise in the playoffs. Any analysis beyond that is mostly a matter of subjective disagreement over the meaning of terms like “contender”.
Based on what I just wrote, you might think that the vibes of the season have been boring since the big picture is mostly intact- the Lions are still a good team, heavily favored to win the NFC North, and in the upper quartile of the NFL. But the reality has been anything but that. Instead we have been treated to a voyage into the storming waters of pro football uncertainty, the choppy up-and-down week to week and the first reminders that negative developments can still happen.
The Lions got blasted by Baltimore, hammered Vegas, escaped LA with a nailbiter win over the Chargers (still functional at that point), pulled off a thrilling comeback at home against Chicago, laid an egg on Thanksgiving against Green Bay, barely held on in New Orleans, flopped in the second half in Chicago, and finally, pummeled Denver on Saturday night. Whew, did you catch all that? There have been great moments and good weeks, but also legitimately concerning trends and performances, the likes of which hadn’t been seen since the first half of 2022.
Perhaps the best way to describe what has transpired for the Detroit Lions in 2023 since I last wrote about them is the normal pendulum swings of an NFL season, which felt worse than they should because Lions fans hadn’t experienced them much over the 20 game joyride where the team was 16-4 dating back to mid-2022. We’d fallen a little bit out of the rhythm of the violent ups-and-downs after being spoiled and the choppy waters of November and December was a hard dose of reality. The last two months haven’t demonstrated that the Lions are in a final form as a Super Bowl favorite, but it has shown that yes, they are still an NFL team like any other. The kind of team capable of struggling offensively for several weeks on end only to light up a Denver defense that had previously been clicking.
The Thanksgiving performance by the Lions against Green Bay was a sincere disappointment for a number of reasons, the biggest being that the Lions had the opportunity for a coronation at home on national TV against a banged up division rival and instead they got punked. The team hadn’t won on Thanksgiving in seven years and it felt like that should’ve been a game they came out hungry in. Instead they were outplayed on both sides of the ball, turned it over relentlessly on offense and got shredded on defense, falling way behind and never catching up.
In the aftermath of that defeat, your author, steamed about the result, tweeted about how the result shook his belief in the team. It felt like a marquee game and the Lions swung and missed, and I voiced my displeasure. Some people concurred, others got mad and pushed back. Maybe it was too rash and aggressive at the time, but my point was simple: they didn’t get up for a big game and that was extremely disappointing.
The next opportunity for a big game win was on Saturday. After beating New Orleans to steady the ship (albeit in an unsteady game), the Lions gacked a 13-10 halftime lead against Chicago, scoring zero points in the second half and going down the road of the ole S.O.L. refereeing fiasco + braindead player gaffe on the intentional grounding/Aidan Hutchinson jumps offsides 1-2 punch. The result was that the Saturday night game against Denver, flexed into primetime and assigned national TV, was a pretty big one. Win and a clinching scenario gets set up for Christmas Eve. Lose and there’s the possibility that the Lions may need two of the final three over a tricky schedule to close the year to win the NFC North. In my view, it was a must-win game.
Denver is not a great team, but they are certainly not a terrible team. They had been on a winning bender of late, 6-1 in their last seven and re-emerging as a playoff contender. The Broncos had wins over Buffalo, KC, Green Bay, Cleveland, and Minnesota. Their defense was forcing turnovers at a tremendous clip and the Lions’ offense couldn’t hold onto the ball. The game was in Detroit and it felt like the Lions were due for a bounce-back, but there was reason to be concerned. A must-win game against a legitimate opponent.
The Lions responded by giving me the outing I wanted to see against the Packers on Thanksgiving, a thorough, comprehensive beatdown by a hungry team on an unsuspecting foe. They played like an angry team, playing opportunistic football on defense, forcing a turnover and getting pressure, and did the same on offense, cashing in for 7 every time in the red zone and holding onto the ball. Jared Goff got back in a rhythm, the young offensive weapons balled out, the OL and DL both won their reps with regularity, and the Broncos were snowed under early. It was 21-0 at halftime and the game was never competitive again. The Lions have one more box to tick before we can declare the regular season a success, but for now, I will not question the team culture that Dan Campbell praises so much again.
[Junfu Han/Detroit Free Press]
The Takes: Offense
Make-it-or-break-it, Jared. In some ways, the choppiness of the last two months in the Lions season can be in large part attributed to the same highs and lows of Jared Goff. The last time I wrote about the Lions, I was heaping praise on Jared Goff and deeming his level of play top 5 in the NFL for a QB. That wasn’t wrong- Goff was legitimately tremendous through six weeks and won them the Tampa Bay game himself. He also was legitimately stinky over the last month leading up to the Denver game: 7 TD to 5 INT, 63.3% completion + 4 lost fumbles(!!) in the prior four games. Not gonna get it done.
Notorious talk radio host Mike Valenti had a good point prior to the Broncos game, arguing that Goff had five weeks to prove his future in Detroit, four regular season games + at least one playoff game. I agree and in good news for Goff, Saturday was a satisfactory first step. After three brutal drives to begin the game, where Goff looked as rattled and out of sorts as he’s been all season, he was dynamite the rest of the game. His final line, 70.6% completion on 8.2 Y/A and 5 TD to 0 INT… that’ll play.
That said, the jury is still out on Goff. Saturday was a good step back in the right direction, but he’s got to keep it going against a feisty Minnesota defense, a good Dallas unit, and whoever the Lions draw in the playoffs. There will be more time for me to spill ink on Goff as the big picture decision on his future looms over the next year, but it’s hard to understate how big the remainder of the season is for both Goff, but also the team. The Lions will go as far as Jared Goff (and his weapons) can take them with the defense still a work in progress.
The young weapons: hella dangerous. There are a number of good young skill position cores on offense in the NFL, including a grouping in Green Bay, but the Lions’ group is up there with anybody’s. Amon-Ra St. Brown doesn’t need to be discussed much as a known star, but it’s worth remembering he’s only 24. The two rookies, Jahmyr Gibbs and Sam LaPorta, are the big stories for me over the past couple months. When I last wrote about the team I was addressing the frustration over perceived lack of usage of Gibbs, but no one has those gripes anymore. Gibbs is up to 792 rushing yards and 7 TDs, with the best YPC clip in the NFL (5.7), looking better each week. His field vision, deceptive rushing ability, and explosive athleticism is a dynamic package and we’re only seeing the beginning of what Gibbs can do. A star in the making.
As for LaPorta, his season pace when I last wrote about the team was 82 catches for 921 yds and 9 TDs. It’s mostly unchanged, now projected for 86 catches for 920 and 11 TDs. If he plays the final three games at this pace, he would have one of the two or three best rookie TE seasons in NFL history. He should be a Pro Bowler and will be a staple of the Lion offense for a long time. Brad Holmes’ decision to move on from TJ Hockenson and instead draft the younger/cheaper LaPorta is arguably his best move as the GM of the Detroit Lions to date.
Give Jameson Williams more touches please. The one name I didn’t include in that previous young skill position bullet but very well could’ve is Jameson Williams. I didn’t because I feel like Jamo ought to get his own bullet. The discourse about Williams was all the rage in Detroit through 18 months of his NFL career, first the injury, then the suspension, then the drops, it was relentless. I attended the Monday night Raiders game in late October and the player with the most chatter in the section I was seated was Jamo, particularly after his brutal drop in that game, with grumbling heard throughout the section of Ford Field.
Funny enough, that is still his most recent drop to date. After at least one drop in four straight games to start his season post-suspension, Jamo has gone six straight games without a drop and has been seemingly building up trust with the coaches. He hit a career high in targets with seven on Saturday (and catches with 4), including a great contested catch and now that he’s stacked good week after good week on top of each other, it’s time to keep increasing usage and finding ways to put the ball in his hands. Every time Jamo has the ball, he is obviously the most dynamic playmaker on the field, with otherwordly breakaway speed… now that his hands are hanging onto the ball, get him the ball more!!
Acquisition of the offseason award goes to Graham Glasgow. When the Lions signed Glasgow in the free agency period for a reunion tour, I wasn’t really sure how much the ex-Wolverine had left in tank. Would he be more than a spot starter? Turns out, he could be! Glasgow started in Week 3 against Atlanta after the Vaitai injury and has not looked back, stepping up as not just a usable starter, but the best guard the Lions have had this season. Pro Football Focus grades him out as one of the 10 best guards to play at least 20% of his team’s snaps this season and that doesn’t seem crazy based on the eye test.
Glasgow is a force up front and is rarely at fault for a TFL or sack. He’s also only been dinged for three penalties. And not just has he been good at guard, but he slid over to start at C in the place of Frank Ragnow as well, when the latter missed three games with injury. Bringing Glasgow back was one of the least sexy moves the Lions made in the offseason but boy has it been a massive coup, and been vital for the team’s success amid an injury-riddled season for the OL.
The Takes: Defense
The all-or-nothing defense. This year’s Lions defense is a peculiar unit in that it is either comprehensively good or comprehensively awful with little in between. Their best games have been thoroughly dominant and the worst ones, dating back to last season, look like some of the worst defense you’ve ever seen in your life. To me the distinction simply comes down to whether or not the Lions’ defensive line is winning its reps with any consistency. I acknowledged in my October post that the Lions’ secondary was still questionable, but the biggest story at that time was that the Lions’ DL was being effective enough at disrupting plays to throw the QB off and miss some throws, sparing the secondary from being punished for errors.
What changed in the weeks the Lions’ defense was getting lit up was the defensive line was not disrupting the QB’s rhythm at all. They wrecked the Packers up front in Lambeau but when they got cooked at Ford Field on Thanksgiving, there was seldom any pressure on Jordan Love and unsurprisingly, the QB looked a lot more poised and effective. That’s the way it goes when you have a secondary that isn’t terribly talented at this time, partially a reflection of resources committed and partially due to injuries. The front six/seven of the Lions have to carry this defense or it gets ugly in a hurry.
The Ifeatu Melifonwu mystery. One of my odd subplots of this season is that every time we’ve seen safety Ifeatu Melifonwu play a meaningful role for the Lions, he’s done quite well, yet he hasn’t played much at all. Melifonwu had to play early in the season when injuries struck the safety room and he mostly acquitted himself well. Then Kerby Joseph got healthy and we didn’t see Melifonwu again for a good two months until a couple weeks ago, when Tracy Walker was demoted and Melifonwu was promoted. In these last two games, Melifonwu has shown out again, with the strip sack of Russell Wilson on Saturday + a couple impressive pass defense moments in coverage.
The third-year player out of Syracuse has had a bumpy, injury-riddled Lions career but he now looks like a viable option in the secondary. I’m not sure why he went away during the middle portion of the season, but given what we’ve now seen from him, I don’t think he can vanish again, even with CJ Gardner-Johnson on the verge of returning. The Lions thus will have four credible safety options between Melifonwu, CJGJ, Joseph, and Walker and I’m not exactly sure how the rotation will shake out but I’ve seen enough from Melifonwu to say that if he’s healthy, he needs to stay in the rotation.
Revisiting the trade deadline. My focus with regards to the trade deadline when I last wrote about the team was shoring up cornerback depth, which in hindsight was the correct opinion. The Lions didn’t address the defense at the deadline and now, with three weeks to go in the season, they might be starting an outside corner who was picked up off waivers only a few weeks earlier. In fairness to Detroit, not many DBs were moved at the deadline whatsoever, so it’s not like there were a lot of options that fell by the wayside, but it still feels like not making any moves to shore up the thinnest spot on the depth chart was a mistake. Either way, it feels like one of the top two priorities in the offseason.
The bigger outcry at the deadline was that the Lions didn’t make a move for DL Montez Sweat or Chase Young, who Washington shipped out. I had mixed feelings at the time, basically resolving to the position that if the Lions were going to forfeit a 2nd rounder for one of those two, they needed to extend them (as Chicago did with Sweat) and that wouldn’t be cheap (it wasn’t for the Bears). It’s a gamble to give up assets for and then lock in a player to a pricey deal who’s never played for your team but Sweat is an elite talent and he’s shown it for the Bears.
I think I would’ve done the deal because the Lions could really use that sort of player on this team (impact EDGE/DL will be the other big offseason need) but I do get why Holmes didn’t. People sometimes forget that a 2nd round pick can turn into an impact starter on a cheap contract (see: Sam LaPorta, Brian Branch) and shedding that sort of asset shouldn’t be done on a whim. Getting Sweat probably would’ve been worth it in the long run, but it wasn’t a hanging offense.
From the last Lions-Vikings meeting [AP]
The Road Ahead
The Lions are now 10-4, holding a three game lead over Minnesota with three to play. One win for Detroit or loss for Minnesota clinches the NFC North for the Lions, with Chicago (5-9) and Green Bay (6-8) both eliminated from contention. However, since the Lions and Minnesota play twice in the final three weeks, there won’t be much scoreboard watching going on. Win on Christmas Eve against the Vikings and end the three decade-long division title drought. The odds of clinching the North at some point (be it on 12/24 or the next two weeks), per the New York Times’ model, is now 96% (DVOA has it at 93.4%). The Lions should win the NFC North or else it’s a historic choke. I know how reassuring that is for fans of the Detroit Lions.
The Vikings are the one team in the division that does not appear to be improving. While Green Bay and especially Chicago have become much more competitive in the second-half, Minnesota has struggled since losing Kirk Cousins to injury. Joshua Dobbs, acquired at the trade deadline, gave them a shot in the arm but it was only temporary. The league figured out Dobbs’ game and he has since been benched for Nick Mullens. The 7-7 Vikings are 1-3 in their last four and feel vulnerable for the Lions to pounce on. But in the NFL, that sort of assessment often means nothing.
The Vikings still have weapons, the trio of Jordan Addison/Justin Jefferson/TJ Hockenson is just as about as good as it gets in the NFL, but they don’t run the ball too well and the level of QB play has declined precipitously without Cousins in there. Their defense has improved dramatically under new DC Brian Flores this season and the pass rush, led by Danielle Hunter, is a concern. The Vikings are a solid team, but shouldn’t be blown out of proportion; their results since losing Cousins are a win over Atlanta by 3, New Orleans by 8, a loss to Denver, loss to Chicago, 3-0 win over Vegas(!), and a loss to the Joe Burrow-less Bengals by 3. In other words, the sort of results that indicate a firmly mediocre squad, not a contender. The Lions will rightfully be favored, but still will need to play more like they did against Denver than in the previous month to wrap it up on Christmas Eve.
In the bigger picture, the Lions are firmly positioned as the 3 seed in the NFC. In my last piece I talked about 13-4 as the target to get the #1 seed in the conference, which is still possible (they’d need to win out and get a bit of help), but the likelihood of that is not high. Somewhere between 12-5 and 11-6 is most likely at the moment (DVOA projections show 11.6 mean wins) and that’s still a successful season because it would include winning the division, which was the ultimate goal of the season. If they do win out, they now control their own destiny for the #2 seed after Philadelphia’s loss on Monday, but that only becomes realistic if the Lions beat MIN this week and win in Dallas.
Back to the bigger picture, is it disappointing that the Lions have undershot the 13-4 target that DVOA projected them for in mid-October? I don’t necessarily think so. That projection and my willingness to buy into it was less about the team being an absolute juggernaut (I never thought they were) and more what was perceived as a terribly weak schedule at the time. What happened in the intervening time was a number of those teams got better and the schedule wasn’t so easy.
Chicago got Justin Fields healthy and added an impact piece to their defense, which leveled up the whole unit and is suddenly playing very competitive games week-in and week-out. Green Bay’s rookie skill position guys started to settle into the league/Matt LaFleur’s scheme and began to make life easier on Jordan Love, who has been able to find more consistency. In turn, that team has become the sort of team who can beat a Kansas City. Even the Denver game became much harder than it looked at the time, while only the Minnesota games got easier.
The path for the Lions to get the #1 seed was to cruise against a laughably easy schedule, while San Francisco/Philadelphia/Dallas, who were probably better teams than the Lions, faced much harder schedules and thus you end up with Detroit #1 despite not being the top dog in efficiency metrics or power rankings. The schedule didn’t end up being so easy and as a result, the Lions ran into more challenges in the way. Thus, the #2 or (more likely) the #3 seed is where they’ll end up, which is alright. Limits the chance of a deeper run into the playoffs more than likely, but it should still set them up with a doable first round matchup.
Among the possible teams for that slot are divisional foes Minnesota and Green Bay + any of Atlanta/Tampa/New Orleans out of the south (whoever doesn’t win the division), and Los Angeles or Seattle out of the west. All these teams are clustered around 7-7 or 6-8 and have reasons the Lions may want or not want to face them. As a general statement, the NFC South teams are the most desirable in my mind, while the MIN/GB or SEA/LAR options all are on various scales of matchup quality and the hairs can be split at a later date. For now, the focus ought to be on winning the NFC North. Only after that can we scrutinize the best playoff matchups. But definitely cheer for New Orleans over the Rams tomorrow night.