The NFC North is a changing landscape these days. For years now the Lions have been dwelling around the basement of this division in search of their first division title since the division shrank from the NFC Central into the NFC North in 2002. 

The problem has always been that the Lions rivals have always featured star players who's specialty seemed to be the ability to beat up on the Lions more than any other team. Even when the Lions were good and had a chance, they still couldn't overcome certain players. 

For once it seems like the Lions are on the other side of that problem. Right now the Lions are the up and coming team with the stars who specialize in beating up on their division rivals. That's great and it will go a long way, but the Lions may have already won by pure subtraction alone. 

This offseason the Lions division rivals have taken big hits to their rosters. Chief among them is the Packers loss of Aaron Rodgers. We know that the Lions swept the Packers in 2022 and Rodgers threw interceptions like he was playing Madden online for the first time in his life and he also happens to be a dog stepping on a PlayStation controller, but that man haunted the dreams of Lions fans for well over a decade. 

That loss is going to be a hard one for the Packers to overcome. With Rodgers, they also lost Allen Lazard. He was the Packers leading receiver in 2022. He accounted for five receiving touchdowns in his last three games against the Lions. Detroit should be happy to see him go. What makes it even better is that they're both out of the division. 

The Vikings took some huge hits too. They seem to be well on their way to a rebuild at this point. They lost Dalvin Tomlinson, Eric Kendricks, Adam Thielen and Za'Darius Smith. 

Those are all big losses for a team that really struggled down the stretch of the 2022 season despite winning the the division crown. Thielen really beat up on the Lions last year. Some of that might have been due to Amani Oruwariye's struggles with him in the first meeting, but he beat up the Lions nonetheless. 

The biggest loss for the Vikings came on Thursday when the Vikings released him after failing to find a trade partner. This is kind of a head scratcher. I know that running backs don't have the value they once had anymore and teams are moving on from them a lot easier, but Cook was a thousand yard rusher in 2022 and is only 27 years old. 

While it's a head scratcher, it's a win for the Lions because Cook has tended to be a problem for the Lions when healthy. You might remember his game against the Lions in 2020 when he ran for 206 yards and two touchdowns or his 2019 game when he ran for 204 yards and three touchdowns. 

He didn't hit that high in 2022, but he did rush for 96 yards and a touchdown in the first meeting between the two teams. The Lions were able to slow him down in the second meeting though. 

Still, for a team that allowed the fourth most rushing yards in the league last year, seeing a player that has beaten them up on the ground go is a big win. 

As for the Bears, the real problem for the Lions still exists. As long as Justin Fields has feet, he's going to be an issue for this team unless they improved on stopping the run this offseason. Still, there's another guy that also had feet on that team and those feet are now in Detroit. I'm talking about David Montgomery's feet. Montgomery was the Bears leading rusher at running back in 2022. He didn't see much of a haul against the Lions though, but in the past he's hurt them. 

The Lions still have to go out there and put in the work if they hope to win their first NFC North title in 2023. But they'll have some help int he fact that the teams that are gunning for the same accolade aren't going to be as strong as they've been in the very recent past. 

Featured image via David Reginek  -USA TODAY Sports