The Detroit Lions were not supposed to be this good this quickly.
Detroit is barely a year removed from the Matt Patricia era, a movement in which the franchise replaced a winning coach (Jim Caldwell, 36-28) for a branch of the Bill Belichick coaching tree who promptly made the team mostly unwatchable. Things went badly enough that winning three games in the final six weeks of 2021 felt like a major accomplishment for rookie head coach Dan Campbell.
Still, 2022 was supposed to be a placeholder year for a team waiting for Jared Goff’s contract to expire and a draft class worthy of spending a top five pick on a quarterback. Instead, there’s a pretty good chance the Lions won’t be drafting that high come April.
Through two games, Detroit is 1-1. It’s scoring 35.5 points per game. Amon-Ra St. Brown has emerged as an alpha wideout averaging 8.5 catches and 90 yards per game — a 145 catch, 1,500-yard season-long pace. D’Andre Swift is averaging an even 10 yards per carry, 131 total yards and a touchdown per game. He finds the end zone even when he falls down 20 yards away from it.
🤫#WASvsDET | 📺 FOX pic.twitter.com/z0Dv5LvKe0
— Detroit Lions (@Lions) September 18, 2022
But most surprising piece of the puzzle may be Jared Goff, the former MVP candidate who was so badly broken by the end of his Rams tenure that he was replaced by John Wolford come playoff time. Goff has six touchdown passes and only one interception in two games. He’s averaging only 6.6 yards per pass — pretty grim! — but is the center of one of the league’s most dynamic and exciting offenses, despite being, well, aggressive average even with that TD:INT ratio..
What’s driving this team to wins? Singular playmakers making huge plays.
What’s the difference between this team and the one that started last season 0-10-1? There aren’t too many major changes. All 425 of the team’s total yards in Week 2 came from players who ended 2021 on the Detroit roster. While Aidan Hutchinson has made an impact, the defense remains the same kind of troubling that means the Lions have to score 29+ for a win.
That’s not the makeup of a good team, necessarily, but in a down year for the NFC you don’t have to be especially great to make a seven-team playoff field. It does, however, make Detroit exceedingly fun to watch, which is a sentence no one uttered once during the Patricia years.
Look at what Campbell’s doing for his guys. Tell me you wouldn’t want to play for this man. Tell me you wouldn’t run through a wall for the coach who rewards the promoted practice squad guard for years of hard work by sending him up to the podium after a win!
Dan Campbell sent reserve OL Dan Skipper to the podium before any player today — after the first W.
Skipper’s been a PSquad guy here for a long time, does whatever’s asked. Played OG for the first time today and is now here to tell his tale.
The Detroit Lions, folks. pic.twitter.com/zBPi9jfAVO
— Nick Baumgardner (@nickbaumgardner) September 18, 2022
Campbell’s a big, goofy Mason jar of football cliches and hyperactive press conferences. He’s also a capital-F Football Guy coaching a bunch of guys who are either tired of losing or looking to prove themselves. His motivation has resonated and he’s got the Lions playing like more than the sum of their parts.
That rules.
