Allen Park — The defending champs were a statistical fraud. The annual frontrunner no longer has the reigning MVP calling the shots. And the other team in the NFC North finished last season with the worst record in the league.
This is what it looks like when opportunity knocks in the NFL. And that is why the Lions sound the way they do this offseason. Or, really, since the moment the 2022 regular season ended with Dan Campbell and his team celebrating a prime-time win at Lambeau Field, where the surging Lions denied Aaron Rodgers one final playoff shot with the Packers and made an emphatic statement about their future.
When Campbell handed team owner Sheila Hamp the game ball in a boisterous postgame locker room following that Week 18 win in Green Bay, Hamp gave voice to what everyone in the organization is thinking heading into the 2023 campaign.
“All roads lead to Detroit,” she said, before adding an exuberant correction. “Through Detroit.”
That sentiment has been shared by players and coaches alike ever since, and after general manager Brad Holmes took an aggressive approach in bolstering the Lions’ roster in free agency and the draft, that’s not likely to change before the season kicks off in September.
The NFL will release the full 2023 schedule next week, and you can expect the Lions — with their bold identity and all that buzz generated by winning eight of their final 10 games last season — to have multiple prime-time games after initially getting none a year ago. (The Green Bay finale was flexed by the league due to its playoff implications.)
But, with the opponents set months ago, and Rodgers’ long-awaited trade to the New York Jets now complete, the oddsmakers list the Lions as the betting favorites to win the North. The projected win totals show just how close the race is expected to be: Detroit’s over-under is currently at 9.5 wins, Minnesota is at 8.5, and Green Bay and Chicago are at 7.5. Yet, the optimism surrounding the Lions, who own the NFC’s longest current playoff drought (six years) and haven’t won a division title in 30 years, is undeniable.
“There’s a vibe; there’s a feeling that you have,” Lions quarterback Jared Goff said recently. “Nothing truly tangible. … And it’s always brand-new. But, there is an overwhelming feeling of optimism and excitement for what we think we can do, for sure.”
With a top-five offense that should continue lighting up the scoreboard and a young defense that made big strides late last season before getting an infusion of veteran talent in the secondary, that’s understandable. Especially when you factor in the motivation that’s been built up, along with the roster amid all the losses the last two years.
“The belief in the guys around them — the coaches, the teammates — was at an all-time high, and I think there’s a feeling that’ll be hard to lose,” Campbell said. “Because when you get the right type of guys and have been put through the pressure our guys have, and have come from where they’ve come from, man, you appreciate it a lot more.”
But, there’s also this: It’s hard to argue the competition in the NFC North got better, not worse.
The Vikings won the division by four games last season. But, they did so with a negative point differential, the first 13-win team in NFL history to do so. All the analytics and efficiency numbers suggest Minnesota was a .500 team, at best, but they ran away in the North, thanks to a remarkable 11-0 record in one-score games under rookie head coach Kevin O’Connell.
But, salary-cap issues forced second-year GM Kwesi Adolfo-Mensah to shed some key veterans last month, and questions remain about the status of running back Dalvin Cook and edge rusher Za’Darius Smith, given their hefty cap charges. Eventually, the team also will have to decide if Kirk Cousins is the quarterback going forward. The Vikings weren’t able to agree on an extension with Cousins, who turns 35 in August and is entering the final year of his deal.
Minnesota didn’t make a move to try to land one of the top quarterbacks in the draft — instead, it spent a first-rounder on another receiver in USC’s Jordan Addison to replace Adam Thielen — but did select BYU’s Jaren Hall in the fifth round. So, for now, it appears Captain Kirk still has the conn, and the Vikings, who last repeated as North champs in 2009, when 40-year-old Brett Favre was under center, will try to run it back before blowing it up.
“We like where we are at the quarterback position,” Adofo-Mensah said. “But, every option is open to us going forward. We’re just really excited about Kirk this year … and we’ll see what happens after that.”
Love for Green Bay
What happened this offseason in Green Bay was a long time coming, as Rodgers found a new home to finish his Hall of Fame career and the Packers (finally) found a way to hand the keys to the franchise to Jordan Love, who’d waited patiently on the sidelines the last three seasons.
Love, who has completed a total of 50 regular-season passes since getting drafted in the first round in 2020, got a vote of confidence from management with a new contract Tuesday. He also got some help in the draft as the Packers added a trio of receivers and a pair of tight ends in a class that — on the heels of a quiet free agency — felt more like a nod to the future than a win-now approach. Even David Bakhtiari, Green Bay’s veteran left tackle, called it a “rebuild” last week, though GM Brian Gutenkust rejected that label himself.
“No, I don’t ever look at it like that,” Gutenkust said. “It’s going to be new, obviously, specifically at quarterback. At the same time, the goals don’t change around here. … There’s one goal here every single year, no matter what. Just like it was the last time we moved on from one quarterback to the other.”
That said, the Packers went 6-10 in Rodgers’ first year as a starter in 2008, and the last time Green Bay endured a losing season (2018) the head coach got fired. So, be careful what you wish for, Matt LaFleur.
Same goes for Bears fans expecting a huge leap in the standings after bottoming out last winter. Chicago’s front office spent big in free agency then added more draft capital by trading the No. 1 overall pick they’d earned with a 3-14 finish. That’s a vote of confidence in quarterback Justin Fields, who still has to prove he can be a reliable NFL passer, not just a dangerous runner.
And while GM Ryan Poles’ heavy emphasis on the defensive front seven and the offensive line made sense in theory, if not in all those dollars, there’s also the reality that a leap like Jacksonville made a year ago — from 3-14 to 9-8 and a division title — is the exception, not the rule.
“I think we’ve taken a big step,” Poles said Saturday after wrapping up his second draft. “But there’s a ways to go as well.”
It’s the way the Lions went last season, in fact. It’s also part of the reason why they’re so eager to get going this season. The NFC North is there for the taking, and if you ask Dan Campbell, his team is ready to grab it: “That is the goal, man,” Campbell said. “We gotta go get this division.”
john.niyo@detroitnews.com
Twitter: @JohnNiyo