The Detroit Lions sit at 3-2 at the bye week. That’s one game behind where I expected this team. The win margins and Detroit’s performance in the wins over New York and New Orleans weren’t exactly inspirational of Super Bowl dreams, either. But wins matter, and the Lions found ways to pull those off.
The Week 4 loss to the injury-depleted Panthers was a crushing defeat. That was the unexpected loss, a game on which I actually burned my survivor fantasy pick. It’s a game that still bothers me almost two weeks later, as regular viewers of the Daily DLP know.
That has made the first five weeks of Lions football a complicated one. Open one eye and the NFC North division title and multiple playoff wins are still easily within reach. Open the other and another disappointing ending just outside the postseason comes into view. Welcome to Detroit Lions football!
Here are a few thoughts rattling around my head on a rainy fall Friday morning during the bye week…
I think Jared Goff is a legit MVP candidate
Goff is off to a ridiculously hot start. Through the first five weeks, he’s operating the Detroit Goff-ense with unmatched mastery across the entire league:
https://x.com/PFF/status/2109427392968061325?s=20
https://x.com/DraftKings/status/2109449470316286274?s=20
Aided by an upgraded offensive line, Goff’s outstanding performance is the biggest reason the Lions are 3-2 instead of 1-4. Yeah, really. It cannot be overstated how important Goff is to the Lions.
He’s unlikely to win the MVP without Detroit going on a serious upward run in the standings. The stats are wonderful, but wins matter. Convincing voters that Goff is more valuable to Detroit than, say, Josh Allen is for the Bills or Patrick Mahomes is in Kansas City, is a tough sell without the Lions winning the North and rolling to 12-13 wins.
Regardless of whether he wins or comes in 4th in the MVP voting, Goff belongs in the conversation. Imagine this Lions team without him…
The disconnect between the defensive front and the secondary makes no sense
For pretty much the entirety of the Dan Campbell era in Detroit, fans have–rightly–bemoaned the lack of a consistent, impactful pass rush. Even with Aidan Hutchinson performing at an All-Pro level for much of the last four-plus seasons, getting to the passer in a timely fashion has been an issue.
Not in 2026.
A healthy Alim McNeill, an improved Tyleik Williams, an impactful rookie gem in Skyler Gill-Howard, a prudent free agent find in D.J. Wonnum and Hutchinson being his typical Hutch self have made Detroit’s front four as good as any in football. Detroit leads the league in sacks and ranks in the top 3 in time-to-pressure and total QB pressures.
Yet, somehow, the Lions pass defense is somewhere between awful and God-awful. The raw data shows a bottom-feeding pass defense:
Lions NFL stats and rankings, courtesy TeamRankings.com
Advanced analytics aren’t much better. Nearly all of the positives came in the first half of Week 1 and the middle two quarters of Week 5, too.
With a very effective pass rush, a strong LB corps and some modest veteran talent sprinkled across the secondary, it makes no sense why the Lions pass defense is off to such a terrible start. That’s a reflection on Defensive Coordinator Kelvin Sheppard and his underling assistants for not designing a back seven that can take advantage of a great front four.
When it’s been at its most functional: two LBs in shallow zone or man coverage, inside technique from the outside CBs playing tighter to the line, one box safety and one roaming safety who are on the same page. We’ve not seen it nearly enough, for some reason. I hope Sheppard and company figure out why we haven’t over the bye week. The team’s postseason fate rests in the balance.
Biggest pleasant surprise: The offensive line coming together so quickly
I expected the Lions offensive line to be significantly better in 2026 than 2025. Simply moving on from Taylor Decker and Graham Glasgow, both of whom appeared completely done, was an important step in putting behind an uncharacteristic bad season from Hank Fraley’s unit.
I was a big advocate of Detroit zeroing in on Blake Miller as the team’s first-round pick, and he’s been just about what I expected as a rookie. Miller has been a league-average right tackle, with flashes of becoming much more than that but also reminders that he’s a rookie.
Penei Sewell at left tackle, other than a couple of notable losses in the Buffalo game, has been exactly what was foretold by Testicles, the Roman God of Football: Dominance. Tate Ratledge has quickly matured into one of the best right guards in the league in his second season. Again, not perfect, but more than good enough.
Christian Mahogany has been much the same on the left side, with a little more variance–especially in Weeks 2 and 3. It’s been a strong start for Mahogany, who was arguably the biggest variable on the entire offense entering the season. The man to his inside shoulder, Juice Scruggs, has left Texans fans wondering where this version of the center was during his largely underwhelming seasons in Houston. He’s the highest-graded center in the league in Pro Football Focus metrics, a fact that reflects both Scruggs’ strong play and an overall dearth in the pivot around the NFL.
The Lions are indeed the No. 1 offensive line in PFF metrics. Quibble with their methodology and grading if you wish–and I have my complaints with PFF too–but there is no doubt the offensive line is ahead of schedule in returning to being great.
Biggest disappointment: The Panthers game. All of it.
Watching the Week 4 game in primetime was bad enough. Rewatching the coach’s tape of the Lions’ unacceptably substandard performance in Charlotte was even worse.
Playing a Panthers team that placed both starting CBs on I.R. during the week leading into the game, Detroit’s passing offense sputtered. There were drops. There were pressures that forced Goff throwaways. There were passes batted down at the line.
Playing a Panthers team already down to reserve starters at both offensive tackle spots and placing its top interior OL on I.R. during the week, the Lions defensive front had its worst game in a long time. The pass rush faltered too often. The run defense saw too many blockers getting to LBs and DBs, who were often attacking the wrong hole. Positional discipline from the edges was poor.
The coverage? Yeah. Playing a Panthers team without its best wide receiver and its No. 3 receiver, Detroit’s defense allowed a career-making game to Tet McMillan at WR and Bryce Young at QB. They deserve credit for playing well, no doubt, but the Lions made it too easy, too often. When the defense finally held, the offense laid its biggest egg of the season with a penalty-plagued, panicked final effort.
While some of the evil things that went down are not isolated to that dismal night, enough are unique to Carolina that I’m willing to give the Lions the benefit of the doubt that it was just one of those nights. A miserable night.
Which is why the Arizona win was so bloody important. Dan Campbell’s team burped and settled instead of continuing to projectile vomit all over the standards it set for itself, and what fans expect of such a talent-laden roster, too.
The next two games decide the season
Week 7 – Green Bay Packers
Week 8 – Minnesota Vikings
Both games are in Ford Field. They represent the first divisional games of the season for Detroit. Right now, entering Week 6, both are ahead of the Lions in the standings.
The Packers are 3-2 after shellacking the Bears in Week 5. They’ve been a high-variance team from one week to another, alternating wins and losses. Both lines in the trenches are struggling with injury and consistency issues, with the offense’s being worse. No team runs the ball less effectively than Green Bay. They’ve been largely terrible at situational football all year, too, before breaking out against the Bears. Third downs and red zone trips are in the bottom third of the league on both sides of the ball.
Minnesota is 5-0 thanks to an almost complete inversion of Detroit’s start. The Vikings have the NFL’s best defense through mid-October. Much like the Lions offense, Minnesota’s defense is great against both the run and the pass. They’ve proven capable of imposing their will on opponents. Meanwhile, their offense ranks in the 20s and the eye test says it’s closer to the 30s than the teens. Strong special teams and defensive takeaways have set them up with good field position that creates more points than they should have for such a sputtering, scattershot unit.
These are eminently winnable games for the Lions, especially at home. Yet neither game will be easy. Victory will require the Lions to be sharp, organized and effective in all phases for all four quarters.
Two wins and the Lions will rightly be considered among the NFL’s best teams and leading contenders to earn a Super Bowl berth. Split the two, and it feels like a Wild Card berth and more frustration interspersed with excitement as the regular season plays out. Lose both, and some very uncomfortable questions and conversations about job security for coaches and front office members, as well as player futures, dominate the final two-plus months of the season.
