Detroit Lions keep rolling, and best of all, look set up for serious long-term success

The Detroit Lions are on a remarkable run, winning six of their past seven games to close in on a wild card berth.

If they make the playoffs, they’ll join the 1970 Cincinnati Bengals as the only team to reach the postseason after a 1-6 start.

But as impressive as they’ve been of late, including in Sunday’s come-from-behind win over the New York Jets, the most significant part of their play the past seven weeks is what it foreshadows for the future.

Lions coach Dan Campbell was asked last week if this year’s team, with its youth in key spots and total belief it will succeed, reminds him of any of the teams he has been around in the past.

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Campbell played 11 seasons for four different teams, was with the New Orleans Saints (on injured reserve) when the franchise won the Super Bowl and has spent the past 13 seasons as a coach. He said this year’s Lions are similar to the 2017 Saints, a team that won 11 games and came within a Minneapolis Miracle of reaching the NFC championship game thanks to one of the best draft classes in recent NFL history.

The Saints nailed the 2017 draft in a way no team has come close to matching since, at least not without taking a franchise quarterback (and they tried to trade up for Patrick Mahomes that year).

The Saints used their two first-round picks in 2017 on cornerback Marshon Lattimore and right tackle Ryan Ramcyzk. They took safety Marcus Williams in Round 2, grabbed running back Alvin Kamara in Round 3, snagged linebacker Alex Anzalone nine picks later and closed Day 2 with defensive end Trey Hendrickson.

Combined, those six have made 10 Pro Bowls with one first-team All-Pro selection. All six have been above-average starters for large chunks of their career and remain in key roles with their current teams now.

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“I don’t want to dive too far into it, but I would (say) ’17 reminds me — there are similarities,” Campbell said. “We had a very young crop of pretty good players, and we had some very good veteran players. And so, there’s some things about it and we were a little bit — nobody knew what we were going to be able to do, but we could battle it out and we were a tough team, we were physical and we could kind of compete in a number of different ways. So to me there are some similarities.”

The Lions’ 2022 draft class has had a similar (in some ways, better) Year 1 impact, and the group is shaping up to be the backbone of a contending team for years to come.

First-round pick Aidan Hutchinson leads all NFL rookies with seven sacks. Second-round defensive end Josh Paschal, third-round safety Kerby Joseph and sixth-round linebacker Malcolm Rodriguez are starters on the Lions’ vastly improved defense. And sixth-rounder James Houston is second to Hutchinson in sacks by a rookie after picking up his fifth in four games Sunday.

Jameson Williams, the Lions’ second first-round pick, has barely played this season in his return from a college knee injury, and if the Lions get any contributions of consequence from him or fifth-round tight end James Mitchell, they might look back on April’s draft as a franchise-changing event.

In New Orleans, Lattimore, Williams and Anzalone (before he was hurt) were first-year defensive starters, Ramcyzk has been an anchor on the Saints’ offensive line for most of his six seasons and Kamara, for a spell, was considered one of the most dangerous running backs in the league.

That group helped propel New Orleans from three consecutive losing seasons to the playoffs, and kept the organization afloat in the later stages of Drew Brees’ career.

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As important as rookie contributions have been to the Lions’ current success, the team’s young nucleus has even greater significance in the bigger-picture context of the NFC North. The goal annually is to win the division, something the Lions have not done since 1993. Doing so gives you automatic entry into the playoffs, and once you’re there anything can happen.

Of the four teams in the NFC North, the Lions are the ones best set up to be perennial contenders going forward. They have one of the youngest rosters in the NFL, core groups in the trenches to build around on both sides of the ball and the most-proven general manager in the division, as new as he still is to his job.

The Minnesota Vikings are the class of the division this year, and have the NFC North’s single best player in wide receiver Justin Jefferson. But they’re an estimated $5 million over next year’s projected salary cap, have aging veterans Harrison Smith, Eric Kendricks, Adam Thielen and Patrick Peterson in key roles and have traded away some of their future draft capital (gifting it to the Lions) to make a run at a ring this year.

The Green Bay Packers’ future remains tied to Aaron Rodgers, the four-time MVP who is having one of the worst seasons of his career at age 39. Rodgers has succumbed either to a broken thumb or Father Time this season, and even if it’s the former, the Packers have failed to surround him with an appropriate supporting cast. Green Bay has a middling group of skill players and a mediocre offensive line, though they are well-stocked with defensive talent.

The Bears’ future is firmly in the hands of Justin Fields, the second-year quarterback who ranks seventh in the NFL in rushing yards regardless of position. Fields is a beacon of hope for a franchise that has had little go right on the field this season, but he remains incredibly raw as a passer.

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Chicago could add a second cornerstone piece to its rebuild with what projects to be a top-five pick in next April’s draft — currently, the Bears have the No. 2 overall choice — and has the most projected 2023 cap space in the NFL. For those reasons, they might be the NFC North team with a long-term outlook that most closely rivals the Lions’ (especially if you believe in Fields).

This isn’t the first time there has been optimism about the Lions’ future, and you don’t have to be a die-hard to know how those other periods turned out. Matthew Stafford looked like a future star after his record-setting 2011 season, with Calvin Johnson, Ndamukong Suh and Jahvid Best by his side. But Best got hurt, Johnson retired early and Suh bolted for the bag, leaving the Lions flailing again.

A decade before that, Joey (Blue Skies) Harrington seemed to have the Lions set up for future success only to have the storms come quickly rolling in.

The Lions’ staying power will be tested in the near future, as is often the case with good teams in the NFL. Offensive coordinator Ben Johnson will be a hot commodity on the coaching circuit this winter, with one person in the know on such subjects telling me Johnson will be as in demand as any first-time head coach in years. Johnson’s creativity and play calling have been central to the Lions’ success, and if he leaves Campbell will have a pivotal hire to make.

Jared Goff has thrived under Johnson’s direction, and at 28 years old still is in the prime of his career. But a couple months ago, Goff’s future looked bleak and there still are questions about his long-term viability around the league.

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The schedule will get tougher next year, and the Lions do have injuries to contend with on their offensive line. Frank Ragnow has had a bum wheel for 14 months and right guard has been a problem since Hal Vaitai was lost to season-ending back surgery.

The Lions have accumulated enough future assets that they should remain competitive for the foreseeable future, though, like Chicago, their ceiling may be a function of how much you believe in their quarterback. They have two first-round picks again in 2023, with a top-10 choice on the way thanks to the Los Angeles Rams, and ample cap space with no truly burdensome contracts on the books.

What they do with those assets will dictate how far they go in the future, but there are more pressing things to accomplish in the present.

At 7-7, the Lions are on the cusp of making the postseason for the first time since 2016. They visit the Carolina Panthers this week and play the Bears and Packers to close the season. If they win out, they likely will head to Minnesota or San Francisco for a playoff game.

No matter what happens the next three weeks, whether they make the playoffs or stumble along the way, Lions have a promising future in front of them, one of the brightest in the NFL because they’ve handled their rebuild the right way.

Contact Dave Birkett at dbirkett@freepress.com. Follow him on Twitter @davebirkett.