The Ringer predicts the Lions will win the NFC North
Everyone is jumping on the Detroit Lions bandwagon these days. It's such a strange feeling to have. For most of my life, this team has been the laughing stock of the league. Now everyone thinks they're good. It's probably because they actually are. With that said, it's prediction season right now. Nora Princiotti and Steven […]
Everyone is jumping on the Detroit Lions bandwagon these days. It's such a strange feeling to have. For most of my life, this team has been the laughing stock of the league. Now everyone thinks they're good. It's probably because they actually are.
With that said, it's prediction season right now. Nora Princiotti and Steven Ruiz of the Ringer NFL show have been going through each division in the league and ranking each team in an effort to predict who will win each division.
On Tuesday they ranked the NFC North and they selected the Lions to win the NFC North for the first time ever. Here's what they had to say.
"Probably the highest floor out of all these teams. Like if they lose, if they win fewer than six games, I'd be very surprised." Ruiz said. "The reason why I put them here is I think this is the one team where you could say they're definitely on a track where they're ascending. I mean the Bears are, but that's probably, that's a situation where they have nowhere else to go but up. But you look at like the Packers, how they kind of left off last year and then Minnesota, even though they won, what did they win 13 games? 11 of those were one possession games and like we had the the Vikings, the fraud question all year long."
It makes sense what they're saying here. The Lions seem to be the only team that isn't going through big and concerning changes at the moment.
The hosts did have some concerns that didn't make a whole lot of sense to me. There's this idea in the national sports media world where the Lions are going to overload on the run and sort of back seat the pass game. It all comes from the Lions signing David Montgomery and drafting Jahmyr Gibbs.
While it's true that the Lions like to run the ball and that they plan to do just that, I don't think you'll see much of a change to the Lions offensive balance. They finished the 2022 season seventh in passing yards and eighth in passing touchdowns. The Lions know where their bread is buttered.
In terms of Jahmyr Gibbs, the Lions have already shown that they plan to use him a lot in the passing game during OTA's and mini camp. If they had selected Bijan Robinson, I could see the worry about the Lions wanting to be more run first. But they took Gibbs. The guy who led Alabama in receptions last season.
The other concern is the Jameson Williams suspension. There's some real validity there. The Lions missing Williams could hurt, but its also something this team is used to. He had next to no impact on the Lions succeeding in the pass game last year. Most of the guys who did are still on this team. The Lions also brought in Marvin Jones, the aforementioned Gibbs and Iowa tight end Sam LaPorta. There will be plenty of weapons to help Goff and the Lions get through that six game suspension. Williams should play a huge role on the team when he returns though. That should only make the Lions more dangerous.
