Jason_R

A lot is riding on Jordan Love. I view him as a streaky QB, whose performance is consistent with an 18-15 record as a starter. But his QBR and passer rating show him in the top ten. This doesn’t feel right to me, but makes sense when you see he is basically tied with Josh Allen for the lowest sack percentage in the NFL over the past two seasons. He’s taken 44 sacks in those two seasons, only 14 last year. Goff took 31 and 30 sacks. When Love took 30 sacks in 2023, GB’s offense ranked just outside of top ten. When he only took 14 sacks last season, they were 5th in yards and 8th in points. They do a good job of protecting him and preventing catastrophic plays. A better job than Detroit has done with Goff. Maybe Morton will focus on protecting Goff better.

Come on fellas, GB was the sixth-best defense in points allowed and the fifth-best defense in yards allowed last season. They got better. That said, last year they played Indy, Tennessee, Arizona, Jacksonville, SF, Miami, NO, and Chicago (2x). That’s nine games against teams with losing records. Their schedule doesn’t look so easy this season. If Jordan Love doesn’t get straightened out they could lose 8 or 9 games on this schedule. Even with upgrading their defense.

He has two years left on his rookie deal ($11 mil and $19 mil). He just came off a catastrophic injury. I suspect if yesterday Detroit had offered him 4/$188 mil, $120 mil guaranteed, he would have signed it in a second. But why would Detroit do that? I suspect they will extend him after this season, and maybe it will end up costing them a bit to wait, but when you figure he is playing this season about $40 million under market, that puts overpaying a bit down the road in context.

How’s his back?

Pro Football Reference lists draft picks according to Weighted Average Value. I don't know how it is calculated, but for reference Jahmyr Gibbs shows up as 27, Sam LaPorta as 17, Jack Campbell as 13, Brian Branch as 12. Other notables in that draft are CJ Stroud at 24, Will Anderson at 18, Bijan Robinson at 21. Hendon Hooker shows up at zero. Even Brodric Martin shows up as 1. Of 34 other players drafted behind Hooker in the 3rd round (including comp picks), only three had zero career value. Only three in the 4th round had zero career value. It's not like this part of the draft was a crap shoot. Almost anybody they would have picked other than Hooker would have been a better pick. But Holmes is still on a trajectory to be one of the best drafters in NFL history so...

Well, you are right that on the one hand they were only 20th in yards allowed, but on the other hand they were 20th in yards allowed. So yes, they were by all available measures a top 20 defense last year, even though they lost a full starting defense to IR by the end of the season. If anything, their high scoring offense contributed to giving up a lot of yards. Every QB they played last year had to try to be Stat Padford. We were all stung by the way the season ended. It will be unlikely that the team faces the worst defensive injury luck possibly in NFL history. Yes, this is a top-20 defense and when all is said and done it is more likely to be the top defense in 2025 than being outside of the top 20 defenses.

Brad Holmes just spiked the football in celebration of his TeSlaa pick.

As bad as people think the defense played last year, they were 7th in the NFL in points allowed in the regular season, at 20.1 points per game. This was in spite of giving up 27.8 ppg in the last five weeks. In weeks 1-12, they averaged giving up 16.9 ppg which would have ranked #1 by nearly a full point. So no, it is not unrealistic to think they will have a top ten defense or even a top five defense. Nor is it unrealistic to expect they will have the top offense and the top defense.

They should stop calling Sports Illustrated “SI” and start calling it “AI.”

I had typed something longer but then clicked a pop up ad instead of submit. 🤦🏻‍♂️ The gist of it was that last year’s team had the sixth-worst injury luck on the defensive side of the ball of any team on record (past 25 years). This figure was calculated on games lost, so did not account for the magnitude of the players lost; on that score Detroit in 2024 may have had the worst defensive injury luck in NFL history. We are all still stung by the way the last two seasons ended, getting picked apart in the secondary. But we are forgetting how dominant the defense looked the first month of last season. The defense is going to win games this season that the offense had to pull out of its hat last year.

What’s more likely, they go 10-7 or 17-0? Probably 10-7, but that’s only slightly more likely.

I suspect Ratledge will end up an improvement over Glasgow who was not great at RG. Mahogany was very good in his cameo last year and I suspect will end up as a capable replacement for Zeitler. But yes, Ragnow is a big loss. And yes, probably the biggest question mark is Decker’s health. He has missed some games and it is a big drop off after him.

Not afraid of the Packers or Bears. Maybe a split with the Vikings. 5-1 in division. 3-1 against AFC North. 3-1 against NFC East. 2-1 against grab bag of Chiefs, Bucs, Rams (who may be starting Stetson Bennett by the time they play Detroit). 13-4, tied with Eagles, who take NFC #1 seed due to win at home against Detroit. But I still think this is Detroit’s year.

https://lionswire.usatoday.com/story/sports/nfl/lions/2025/08/23/dan-campbell-hendon-hooker-postgame-texans-preseason-change-of-scenery/ He gone.

Last year’s Lions finished with the 12th highest PPG in NFL history (tied with the 2019 Ravens) at 33.2 points per game. They seem to be significantly better at the skill positions with TeSlaa. Clearly Ragnow is a big loss, as is Zeitler, but Mahogany and Ratledge should be capable. The missing piece is on defense, where the 2025 Lions should be substantially improved. More takeaways and shorter opponent drives could make this team more potent than it was last year.

Allen has secured the QB2 role and… the game isn’t over yet. MCDC said they might not carry three.

But there's still time for them to trade for Trey Hendrickson and give him a massive deal before they pay Hutch.

Gary Thorne and Bill Clement. I loved watching them. And yes, I loved Stevie, Sergei and the Russian Five, Shanny, McCarty, Drapes... but what about Martin Lapointe? A team could always use a guy like him.

I’ll never forget that when fans were holding vigil for Vladdie at the site of the accident, Sergei showed up to be with them.

Imagine the locker room if Trey Hendrickson got paid by the Lions before Aidan Hutchinson. It would ruin the culture they are always talking about building. Hendrickson is not coming. For grins I asked AI how the 2024 Lions ranked for injury luck. It told me they had the sixth-worst figure for adjusted games lost on the defensive side of the ball in NFL history (32nd worst in 2024). Of the top twelve teams it listed all time, only Detroit had a winning record, going 15-2 with the #1 seed. This is one of the most astonishing statistics I recall seeing. 2024 was a historically great season with historically bad injury luck. We do not need Hendrickson. We need a full season from Hutchinson.

Appeal the ruling, win the appeal, have Harbaugh come back and guest-coach the games Sherrone was supposed to miss, and buy $20 million worth of hamburgers for the 2026 recruiting class. Checkmate, NCAA.

This makes more sense than “mental arror.”

Hooker may have sealed his fate with that last pass. Yes, great play by the linebacker, but you cannot throw that ball.

I must have misheard this, but I thought Lomas Brown just said “that was an MA, what I call a mental error.”

In addition to questionable depth this year, they only have Seider, Johansson, and Edvinsson under contract on the blue line next year. Anyone they pull up from GR, now or later, will leave a spot that needs to be filled there. Also next year they won’t fill all of the four open roles from GR. It would be good to have a few options to re-sign for one or more of those roles already within the system.