If the Lions merely hold serve this season, they should ace the test in front of them. By most comparative measures last season, they were one of the top teams in the NFC -- and they believe they've gotten better since. Asked how high is confidence is that the Lions have the roster to win the NFC North, GM Brad Holmes said Friday, "Very high."
"We’re not scared of the expectations," said Holmes. "The expectations are earned through what we’ve built and how we finished last season and our player-acquisition process. But now we just gotta prove them right."
The simple autopsy of the 2022 Lions is that they were awful out of the gate, great down the stretch. Indeed, a 1-6 start turned into an 8-2 finish. Only four other NFL teams won eight of their final 10 games, including three of the last four standing: Chiefs, Bengals, 49ers and Bills. Thing is -- and the Lions kept saying this last fall -- they were a play or two away from flipping most of their losses in the early going, even against the best teams. Once they got rolling, they were hard to stop.
In nine games against playoff teams last season, the Lions wound up with a plus-19 point differential. Even in three-point losses to the Eagles and Bills, they punched up to the competition. They had an overall point differential of plus-26, which made them the only team in the NFC to finish with a positive point differential and miss the playoffs.
"I think last year we proved that we can definitely compete with anyone," said Holmes. "We had some big games last year versus what you would consider the top, elite teams in the league. And I believe we got better this offseason and this training camp, so we feel even more confident that we’ll be able to compete with the big dogs."
The Lions were the only team in the NFL last season to win at least five games in their division and not win their division. They were the only team in the NFL to win at least seven games in their conference and not make the playoffs. They were also the only team to finish with a top-10 offense and not make the playoffs. Again, if these trends hold, the Lions should be hosting their first playoff game since 1993, assuming the roof isn't blown off Ford Field before then. The air in Detroit is thick with anticipation.
Expectations have risen with the team's talent. After making a statement last season on offense, the Lions went out and upgraded a backfield that had put up Detroit's best rushing season this century. The duo of David Montgomery and Jahmyr Gibbs could be lethal, especially behind a loaded front that's finally healthy entering the season. The Lions' statement on defense came in the offseason, when they flooded a faulty secondary with playmakers like C.J. Gardner-Johnson, Cam Sutton and Brian Branch.
"As a player," said assistant GM Ray Agnew, a former defensive end who won Super Bowl XXIV with the Rams in the penultimate season of his career, "you want expectations. You want people to think you’re going to be good. And the reason we can be comfortable (with that) is because of the guys we have on this team. They're still hungry, man. They’re still hungry to prove that they’re great in this league, still hungry to prove that we belong in the conversation."
"And not a better test than that (season)-opener," said Holmes. "They’re the champs. Everything you hear is, ‘The Lions are gonna do this, that, great.’ But opening game is, let’s see it. We’ll be ready to do that."
That comes next Thursday against the Chiefs, the team everyone is chasing. For all the hype around the Lions, Holmes is sure to point out that they remain on the hunt: "We’re not succumbing to targets on our back. No, we’ll always be hunting and aiming for the target." The target for this team is clear: the NFC North, the division the Lions haven't won since it was called the NFC Central.
When Holmes and Agnew arrived from the Rams, and Dan Campbell from the Saints, they brought with them piles of division titles. The Lions were headed for their fourth straight last place finish, the worst stretch in franchise history. 2021 was brutal for everyone involved, the start of 2022 in some ways worse. But in this staring contest with adversity, Holmes, Campbell and the players they'd acquired refused to blink. They trusted in the plan and in each other, and now they're ready to taste success.
"I do think we took our medicine the last couple of years," said Holmes. "Me and Dan talk about it all the time: we coached the Senior Bowl, we had to do 'Hard Knocks' we’ve done all that. We’ve gone through a lot of darkness to get to this point. But that’s where the grit comes into play in terms of not wavering and not getting discouraged. We just put the focus on building the best roster we can."
Entering 2023, it's the deepest roster the Lions have had in recent memory. It's also long on motivation. Only a few players in Detroit, veterans like Jared Goff, Gardner-Johnson and Emmanuel Moseley, have experienced any kind of playoff success. And none of that success means anything to their current team. In the words of Agnew, "Face it: we haven’t played in the playoffs yet, so there's still a hunger to get there."
When they do, they'll have an even hungrier city behind them.