One year ago, the Detroit Lions were the best team in the NFC. They finished 15-2, earned the top seed, and looked like a franchise that was finally cashing in on years of building toward something real.
Then came 2025. A 9-8 record. A missed playoff berth. A defense that ranked 22nd in points allowed. Five losses in one-possession games. A season that felt, at every turn, like a team that could not find the moment it needed to win.
Aidan Hutchinson put it plainly: the Lions were not playing complementary football. The offense was good. The defense was not. They could not get out of their own way when the games were close. It was a disappointing, grinding year for a city that had been waiting a long time to feel good about its football team.
Now the question is simple: was 2025 a detour, or a decline?
Jared Goff Is Not the Problem
Let's be clear about something before anything else: Jared Goff was not the reason Detroit missed the playoffs.
In 2025, Goff threw for 4,564 yards, 34 touchdowns, and just eight interceptions with a 105.5 passer rating. He has been among the NFL leaders in passing yards and touchdowns since 2023, and the offense ranked fourth in scoring despite a season that felt like a failure. Goff was efficient, accurate, and productive in a year when the team around him could not hold up its end of the deal.
The Lions are bringing in a new offensive coordinator: Drew Petzing, who spent three seasons running the Cardinals' offense under Jonathan Gannon. But the change is less about fixing Goff and more about finding a fresh way to deploy the talent around him. Petzing inherits one of the better skill position groups in the NFC and a quarterback who has proven he can operate at a high level.
The core of that skill group is intact. Amon-Ra St. Brown remains one of the most reliable receivers in football. Jameson Williams is the vertical threat who defenses cannot ignore. Jahmyr Gibbs is a dual-threat weapon out of the backfield who creates mismatches all over the field, though his current contract holdout adds a real August storyline to watch. The pieces are there. Petzing just has to find the combination that puts them in position to use them.
Replacing David Montgomery and Reworking the Offensive Line
One real change on offense: David Montgomery is gone, traded to the Houston Texans, and Detroit had to reshape the backfield behind Gibbs.
The Lions signed Isiah Pacheco on a one-year, $1.81 million deal to take on a physical complementary role. Pacheco brings a different style than Montgomery: more explosive, more of a home-run threat, and still plenty willing to run through contact. If Gibbs' holdout lingers, Pacheco becomes even more important. If Gibbs is back in the building and ready to go, Pacheco gives Petzing a veteran second option who can keep the offense physical.
The offensive line also went through a meaningful overhaul. Veterans Taylor Decker and Graham Glasgow were released, and Penei Sewell, one of the best offensive linemen in football, slides to left tackle. Cade Mays comes in at center, a reliable interior piece with a strong pass-blocking track record. And the Lions used the 17th overall pick on Blake Miller, an offensive tackle out of Clemson, to give the line a long-term building block for the future.
Sewell at left tackle is the right move. He is that good. If Miller develops and Mays stabilizes the interior, the offensive line could be as strong as it has been in recent years even after the personnel turnover.
The Defense Has to Be Better. That Starts in the Secondary.
The honest conversation about the 2026 Detroit Lions has to start with the defense, because the defense is what lost them the 2025 season.
Hutchinson delivered a career year: 14.5 sacks, Second-Team All-Pro honors, and finalist recognition for both Defensive Player of the Year and Comeback Player of the Year. But he could not carry a unit that ranked 22nd in points allowed on his back alone. The Lions lost five one-possession games because the defense could not make the stops that would have changed the outcome. That cannot happen again.
And then, this offseason, the secondary situation got harder.
Terrion Arnold, the first-round cornerback from the 2024 draft, was released in June after being charged with felonies related to a kidnapping and armed robbery case. Losing Arnold is a significant blow to a unit that was already stretched thin. The Lions are now turning to Rock Ya-Sin, who re-signed on a one-year deal, and Ennis Rakestraw Jr. as candidates to fill the CB2 role opposite D.J. Reed.
On top of that, linebacker Alex Anzalone and cornerback Amik Robertson departed in free agency. Detroit answered some of those losses with additions: Roger McCreary and Chuck Clark in the secondary, D.J. Wonnum and Payton Turner adding depth on the defensive line, and second-round edge rusher Derrick Moore out of Michigan giving Hutchinson a potential running mate.
The question is whether it is enough. The talent needed to improve this defense is not entirely in place yet. Hutchinson is elite. After him, the pieces are younger, less proven, and being asked to do a lot.
Is the Window Still Open?
Hutchinson thinks so. He said as much this offseason. "We know we're in a window," he said, and he meant it.
The argument for the Lions is real. Goff, Sewell, Hutchinson, St. Brown, Gibbs, and Williams are all still here. The coaching staff has not fractured. The front office, which built this roster, is still intact. This is not a team in freefall. It is a team that had a bad year and needs to correct course.
The argument against: the NFC North is loaded. The Bears won the division last year. The Packers are a contender with Parsons returning midseason. The Vikings have Justin Jefferson and a new quarterback competition. Detroit is good, but the margin for error in this division is thin, and 2025 showed that a Lions team that does not play complementary football loses games it should win.
Crystal Ball Prediction
Win total: 11-6. NFC North contender, playoff team.
The talent on this roster is too good for a repeat of 2025. Goff is a top-ten quarterback. Hutchinson is a top-five edge rusher. The offense has the pieces. And a defense that improves even from 22nd to 15th in points allowed would change the outcome of most of those five one-possession losses.
But the Super Bowl window is not getting wider. It is staying the same size, maybe narrowing. The 2026 Lions need to play like the 2024 Lions: complete, complementary football on both sides of the ball, and prove that 15-2 was the real Detroit, not the team that went 9-8 and stayed home in January.
The talent says they can. Now they have to show it.
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