It became quite clear to me that the Detroit Lions easily passed the eye test this year as being the league’s best team.
Wait, you say, doesn’t that belong to the Eagles?
No, because the NFL doesn’t play a 7 game series. The Eagles were merely the team that survived long enough to play an vastly overrated Kansas City Chiefs team (and by extension, AFC), after tuning up lesser than competition throughout the NFC playoffs.
There are times when it’s clear the league’s best team wins the Super Bowl. There are other teams it’s abundantly obvious that it doesn’t. I’d argue the league’s best team a year ago was Baltimore, for example.
The Lions will not encounter the same level of injury adversity that affected them this year. It’s not statistically possible. The team has been built from the inside out, and has every piece in place to replicate what they did in 2024, only with the manpower to survive a postseason run.
Honestly SF blew it last year against KC in the SB. They were the better team. The thing that KC usually does 99% of the time is make fewer mistakes. The Chiefs looked tired in the playoffs this year and I guess making 3 straight SBs will do that. Will be interesting to see what they do during the off season.
I can’t say with 100% we were winning it this year if healthy, because of how we played against the Commanders, but we would have definitely made it a game. Goff had to many turnovers the last two games of the season and something seemed off. Defensively we have got to get another pass rusher. Please give me Garrett, Crosby, or Hendrickson. I know that will be difficult but I don’t want to see any of those guys end up on another roster in the NFC North either.
I’m not rolling with any predictions here because we just learned a very hard lesson with that this season.
I want to agree with the post, but I can’t quite get there. Too many game situations where we were not going to be able to survive due to a decimated defense. If healthy, I’m on board. (Davenport, Hutch, Alim, CD3, Barnes…) We were going to be a handful on defense for any foe.
Best team in the league was Buffalo, IMO. I don’t like them, nor do I understand how they lost, but the eye test in 2024 said they were the best.
The Lions have some work to do. We can’t let Schwartz-like front-4 attacking defenses like Houston’s and Washington’s do us in so easily. We’re the effing Lions. Sewell is the face of the franchise. We should eat Payne and crap Sweat.
If we were completely healthy like the Eagles I don’t think we perform like we did against Washington. Having zeitler and the offensive line healthy would have made a difference. Let alone what the defense would have been. Philadelphia had 21 of 22 starters healthy. If we had Hutchinson and Davenport healthy our pass rush would have been just fine.
I agree but honestly going into the season what’s the chances of Davenport being healthy? And if you stop Hutchinson who else on the DL is going to make a play from the DE position? They have got to get more studs on the DL. That’s the biggest take I got from the SB.
I was talking about if we had stayed healthy last year. It would be insanely to count on Davenport for anything beyond one game. If by some miracle he does get resigned it better be for the absolute minimum. I don’t even see that happening though.
Honestly, I’d be pretty surprised if we didn’t see some slight regression next season. That’s just how the NFL works. It’s extremely hard to lose both coordinators and then replicate a 15 win regular season type team.
Injuries decimated the defense… But we were extremely healthy on offense and turned it over 5 times in the playoffs. There really is a ton of luck involved. A lot of teams lost their starting qb’s for large stretches of the season, just so hard to overcome that.
On paper, I think we could win the super bowl next year but just a million variables between now and next February.
I think they overestimated the impact paschal would make as well. That’s my guess. I questioned the signing just like most did. It didn’t make sense to count on a player that has so clearly proven he cannot stay healthy.
Great point. Lets hope DC chose wisely. I think offensively we are going to be really good still. Just so much talent on offense. Defense though? Shep is a first time play caller and we have about 15 guys coming back from serious injuries. Will they be the same? Hope so.
And still scored 30+ pts against the Commanders - while our banged-up defense stopped nothing.
Dominant teams - like the Lions very plausibly would have been w/Hutchinson and just average injury levels - can beat even good teams (like the Commanders) even on off days. W/just average health on both sides of the ball next year, I agree the Lions will be dominant, especially come playoff time.
The pick 6 was probably the back breaker. Cause the defense couldn’t stop them and we gifted them 7 free points. We were down 3 at the time…became 10 in a flash.
It was a weird year. We were so focused on the 1 seed, bc the alternative was the five seed. We may have demoralized Minnesota this past year, but I think they were the reason we didn’t make it.
Getting awarded the one seed made us take our eye off of the ball for a hot minute. And that’s all it takes. I don’t buy the bunk that Ben was distracted. I don’t buy the bunk that we shouldn’t have ran Monty. I don’t by the bunk that you never have an empty set on third and one. I do buy that we were looking past Washington as a collective team. I also buy that we had one or two too many injuries to overcome.
We need to go into the playoffs next year with a different mind set. Peak late. Play your best ball in the playoffs. Go on a 3 or 4 game winning streak once the playoffs happen.
I also can’t get there just yet. It still sounds hollow bc I was pretty sure 2024 was our year. Its a defense mechanism to not be there (i.e. certain of a SB win) again so soon.
