The Detroit Lions had a big problem with their offensive line this year. That’s been drilled into the heads of local media and fans for months now. Some have gone as far as to say the Lions had the worst offensive line in the league, and while I think that’s a bit far, I wouldn’t say it was wildly off judging by the final weeks of the year.

You made a post comparing sacks given up by the offensive line last season to the season before. How do the end-of-season numbers compare in that regard?

— ? Patrick Towey, Not A Right-Wing Nutjob (@toweypat) February 10, 2026

I’ll be honest, I can’t really remember doing that, but I decided to make an article out of this idea. When I looked into it, I was super sure that it was going to look horrible. But actually, it didn’t, like at all.

Ok, that was not really the expectation, right? Just 14 more pressures and six more sacks than the offensive line we were all comfortably calling the best in the NFL, just a year ago. Let’s really dig into why things looked this way.

Jared Goff is a lot better at avoiding sacks than you think

Despite the above numbers, the Lions’ offensive line allowed the shortest time to pressure in the NFL in 2025. Teams were getting past this line. But Goff did not allow that to get him hit all the time because he was 13th in pressure-to-sack percentage, among quarterbacks who had a minimum of 200 drop-backs under pressure (Basically all starting quarterbacks).

That’s measuring the percentage in which a pressure turns into a sack on a quarterback. It effectively measures who can avoid them.

He got sacked on 17% of the pressures that came his way. If you want to have even more fun, that’s right above Bills quarterback Josh Allen, who got sacked 18.6% of the time. So while Goff doesn’t scramble like crazy and dance all over the field, that does not mean that he’s not avoiding sacks.

There’s a recency bias that’s really biasing

The end of the Lions’ season was all-time bad. 46 pressures in the last four games alone. Eight sacks in that time as well. Generally, people are going to remember the last thing they saw, and what you were seeing in those four games was Kinglsey Eguakun playing his only two NFL games, Taylor Decker missing for a game, Penei Sewell missing a game, an injured Christian Mahogany, and Trystan Colon getting himself benched. It was bad.

Why there is something positive to take away

The thing is that when the Lions’ offensive line was healthy and at full strength, they actually looked pretty good. We’re talking about the first eight weeks of the season. 51 total pressures and five sacks. Both Tate Ratledge and Mahogany were playing well, and Graham Glasgow hadn’t allowed a sack.

Obviously, there is going to be some turnover this year, and it is needed. We’re not making the argument that the Lions are fine because they’re not. What we are saying is that the Lions have a pretty decent start to the process with Sewell, Ratledge, and Mahogany. If they can nail their center and left tackle pickups, the Lions are going to be in very good shape in 2026.

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