It's almost here. We are just days away from the Detroit Lions beginning their 2023 campaign. The Lions will be playing the Super Bowl Champion Kansas City Chiefs on the NFL's opening night. It's going to be a lot of fun. 

Now that free agency, the combine, the draft, mini camp, OTA's, training camp and preseason are all finally in the bag, we have all the knowledge we need to make our final predictions going into the season. Here's the picks I'll be making today.

• Offensive MVP
• Defensive MVP
• Offensive Rookie of the Year
• Defensive Rookie of the Year
• Comeback Player of the Year
• Final Record Prediction

Let's jump into it.

Offensive MVP: Jared Goff

This is a huge year for Jared Goff. There’s a lot of pressure attached to it. If Goff can have a good season, he’ll likely get a big payday with a big contract extension. He can also show that he’s one of the leagues top tier quarterbacks and he’s beyond the whole regression thing that happened with the Rams. 

I think he has that year. His relationship with Ben Johnson and the way that Johnson tailors this offense around what Goff does best is just too good to ignore. Plus Amon-Ra St. Brown has looked like he's on the verge of a monster year all camp. That'll only help Goff. 

Defensive MVP: C.J. Gardner-Johnson

I think the popular pick here might be Aidan Hutchinson. I totally get that pick too. But it’s not all about stuffing the stat sheet in my opinion. Gardner-Johnson can definitely do that. He led the NFL in interceptions last season. 

It's more about the leadership here. Gardner-Johnson has this defense feeling confident in themselves. They're out their walking with swagger and they're talking trash. It's almost liek watching the Pistons' Bad Boys teams of the 80's. That all stems from Gardner-Johnson. He's the bad guy and the city loves the bad guy. 

Offensive Rookie of the Year: Jahmyr Gibbs

No shocker here at all. Gibbs should be a major part of the Lions offense in 2023. Judging by Ben Johnson's recent comments, the Lions will really be looking to milk every ounce of the term position-less weapon out of the 12th overall pick. 

Interesting from Lions OC Ben Johnson on rookie RB Jahmyr Gibbs: "We might use Gibbs in some ways that people don’t quite think we might."

— Tim Twentyman (@ttwentyman) September 2, 2023

Gibbs could wind up being not just the Lions offensive rookie of the year, but the NFL's rookie of the year. 

Defensive Player of the Year: Brian Branch

Branch has been the talk of the town all summer long. He’s gone from a steal in the second round to suddenly he’s a starter in Detroit and he might be the best defensive player in the whole draft. That’s how good he’s looked during camp and in the preseason. So good that you wonder how he could have possibly made it to the Lions in the second round. He might not be good. He might be great. 

Comeback Player of the Year: Levi ONwuzurkie

Maybe the smarter money is on safety Tracy Walker, but I have to go with Onwuzurkie simply becasue if you would have asked me just a couple months ago, I would have told you that I don’t think he ever plays a down of football again. Yet here we are. He retuned at camp and looked good in the process. He should see plenty of field time in 2023. Maybe this will change later, but I have to give him some flowers now. 

Final Record Prediction

I’m going to stick with the prediction that I had after the schedule came out. There’s just so many thing that are on the Lions side right now. They’re a good team, they have a lot of young quarterbacks on their schedule and they only play one game outside in the elements this year. Add all that up and I think the Lions are a team that could win their division and maybe even take the first week of the playoffs off. 

Final Record Prediction: 12-5 

Only one GM has kept more draft picks than Brad Holmes and the Lions

Detroit Lions General Manager Brad Holmes spoke to the media on Friday and something stood out to me in that presser. It wasn't even something that Holmes said. It was part of a question that one of the reporters asked. Holmes was asked about how he felt about the Lions keeping nearly all of their […]

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