Analytics point to the Lions having an extremely good chance of playing in the Super Bowl next year
The Lions still have a very talented team
The 2025 Detroit Lions season did not go well. Missing the playoffs is rough, and as we know, the Lions are pretty unhappy about it. What’s weird is that so much about this team having this bad season just doesn’t make sense. Especially to the analytic rocket scientists who created DVOA.
DVOA is Defense-adjusted Value Over Average. It’s “an advanced football metric created by FTN’s Aaron Schatz, that measures team and player efficiency by comparing every play’s success against the league average, adjusting for opponent strength, down, distance, and field position. Essentially, it tells you how much better or worse a team/player performs in specific situations.” In my opinion, it’s the most useful method of analysis in football.
Schatz has found that the Lions are one of the best 8-8 teams in DVOA history, and because of that, they could be joining some of those teams by following it up with a trip to the Super Bowl
The teams that made it to the Super Bowl the next year were the 2007 Giants. They went from 8-8 in 2006 to winning the whole thing in 2007. The 1993 Chargers went to the Super Bowl in 1994. They didn’t win it, though. The Saints went to the Super Bowl and won it in 2009 after being on this list in 2008.
Other than the Eagles and Cowboys’ collapses Schatz referred to here, almost all of these teams went on to have winning records the next year. So it’s pretty important to note that the Lions’ window is not closed just because they dealt with a ton of bad luck this year. The Lions have a good enough team to break out of this and go very far next year. Maybe even to the top. We’ll see how they handle the offseason.
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