It's the unanswerable question at the start of every rebuild: how long is this going to take? For the Lions, in their first year rebuilding under Brad Holmes and Dan Campbell, it's going to take ... some time. Detroit has holes across its roster and, at best, a question mark under center. That much is clear through the first two games of this season, if it wasn't clear already.
That said, things can change quickly in the NFL. Take it from T.J. Lang, who signed with the Lions after they went to the playoffs in 2016 and watched them crater under new leadership two years later. And here they are now, trying to dig themselves out.
It's easier to collapse than climb -- much easier! -- but the Lions can climb faster than you might think, Lang said on the first episode of the Necessary Roughness podcast with Jon Jansen.
"Rebuilds right now in the NFL can be expedited by a year or two if you get a couple just dynamic players in here. They drafted Penei Sewell in the first round. OK, offensive lineman, that’s not flashy. But you know what that is? That’s building your offense. And you take a look at their offensive line now — obviously Taylor Decker still being out — those guys have been the most consistent position group on this team. That’s a hell of a place to start. So maybe next year it’s, 'OK, all we need is a receiver,' instead of looking at last year and saying, we don’t have this, we don’t have this. There’s a checklist of stuff that you don’t have. All it takes sometimes is one player that you bring in for free agents around the league to say, 'Sh*t, look at that guy over there in Detroit. I wanna go play with him.' And Penei Sewell could be that type of guy.
"I know it's not a flashy pick, but if they end up finding that guy at a certain point, maybe next year on the defensive side where other guys are saying, 'I wanna go play with him,' you can cut a year or two off that rebuild, man. And time will obviously tell on that. But look at where the Cleveland Browns were four years ago, look at where they were three years ago, look at them now. And it started with them, really, building the offensive line. Going and getting a couple guys, drafting Jedrick Wills, signing JC Tretter, (trading for) Wyatt Teller. They just built that offensive line. It wasn’t pretty for a year, and then they got the quarterback obviously, but that team is considered a really good, competitive playoff team at least through two weeks."
The Browns went from 6-10 two seasons ago to 11-5 and the second round of the playoffs last season after major progression on the part of quarterback Baker Mayfield. Which begs the question: can Jared Goff be that guy for the Lions?
"Potentially," said Lang. "Yeah, potentially. I think that his play through the first couple weeks has been encouraging at times."
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In Lang's view, Goff didn't fully trust his remade offensive line in the first half of the season-opener. Once he settled in, "you saw a lot of encouraging things from Jared Goff and he parlayed that right into the first half against the Packers," said Lang. "He was extending plays, he was being creative, he was doing all these things that kind of make you sit back and say, 'Yeah, what the hell’s (supposed to be) wrong with him? Why can’t we win with this guy?'"
Echoing Dan Campbell, Lang said the Lions have to play "really solid football" to be competitive each week, given the constraints of their roster.
"And Jared Goff has shown that he’s capable doing that," said Lang. "He’s just gotta start putting it together. And it might not be this year, it might be next year. Maybe the way he plays the rest of this year they say, 'OK, we got something for him.' But you also look at what, what does he have to work with on the outside? There's really not any receivers that have established themselves as being playmakers or No. 1 guys. You can’t win a whole lot of games targeting your tight end 12, 15 times a game. But I think it's definitely encouraging in pretty big spurts so far in the first two games of the season that I think, yeah, this is a guy you can win with."