Getty D'Andre Swift celebrates after a 2020 touchdown in Atlanta.
The Detroit Lions aren’t expected to have much of a successful year on the field in 2021, but like any season, there is still a potential road map to the team winning.
Clearly, the Lions would have to have a lot of things go their way in order to have what folks would deem a semi-successful season, but exactly what would have to come together for that to occur? Plenty of things on both the offense and defense it turns out.
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Pro Football Focus put together their best and worst case scenario outlines for every NFC team, and when it came to the Lions, writer Ben Linsey explained that the team’s best-case scenario still isn’t all that great at an 8-9 record.
As for how, Linsey wrote that the team’s offensive and defensive lines would have to come together in a major way:
“Detroit’s decision to build through the trenches gives them a nice floor on both offense and defense. An offensive line led by Taylor Decker, Frank Ragnow and Penei Sewell is a top-10 group across the NFL, providing the kinds of clean pockets that Jared Goff has shown he can have success from in Los Angeles.
A healthy Trey Flowers, Michael Brockers, Alim McNeill, Levi Onwuzurike and Romeo Okwara put up a better effort against both the run and pass than what the Lions’ defensive front showed in 2020. Detroit’s defensive front collectively ranked 30th in PFF grade last season.”
All things considered, the truth is probably in the middle. The Lions aren’t as bad as some dismal predictions where some say they have one to three wins in their future, but eight could also be a big ask. It’s likely the truth will lie in the middle with somewhere around five or six wins.
If the Lions do better, Jared Goff and the quarterback spot will have come along. If they do worse, it’s likely there were struggles at that spot as well as on defense leading to a tough year.
Early Projections Favor Miserable Season for Lions
It’s been common for Pro Football Focus to see the Lions as bound for disaster during the 2021 season. A few months ago, the site took a look at some expected win totals for the 2021 season, and when it came to the Lions, the team was occupying a familiar place near the bottom of the league.
Detroit is projected to win only five games next season, which is the second-lowest total in the league other than the Houston Texans who are pegged to win four. Obviously, folks are seeing what the Lions did last season and comparing it with the changes that have been made to predict bad things in the future for the team.
It is hardly going out on a limb to suggest the Lions are set up for a bad season, so it will be interesting to see if this team can buck the odds and find a way to make things go right.
Lions Called ‘Less Talented’ for 2021
The Lions don’t seem to make winning big a major habit in any given year, but have they ever lacked this much talent on their roster? The answer, according to analyst Evan Silva, is no. As he wrote a few months back, while the Lions have underachieved on the field a ton lately, they’ve rarely had a team that looked this bad even on paper in terms of the actual nuts and bolts of the roster.
The Lions made changes and improvements in the draft, but big questions remain regarding whether the team is set up to have success or not, especially at some of the thinner spots on the roster such as wide receiver and perceived downgrades at others like quarterback.
Nobody will be picking the Lions to do much of anything, so it will be interesting to see if a rag-tag roster can battle and get themselves to this potential high-water mark of eight wins in 2021.
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