DETROIT – The 2025 version of the Detroit Lions have a fatal flaw, and it’s derailing everything they’ve built over the past three seasons.
On Sunday night, the Lions got pushed around by the defending Super Bowl champion Philadelphia Eagles. By itself, that wouldn’t be too concerning. The Eagles are really good. They were at home. It was a raucous environment.
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But this isn’t the first red flag for this year’s edition of the Lions. And it’s more troubling because of the way they lost.
The Lions no longer have a strong offensive line.
That’s hard to believe for a team built by Brad Holmes and Dan Campbell. But we’re through 10 games now, and it’s undeniable that the Lions have allowed what was once their greatest strength to become the most glaring weakness.
Over the past three years, the Lions have erased a losing culture that pervaded the halls of Allen Park for six decades. They chipped away at it with an 8-2 finish to 2022. Then they broke through with a 27-7 record the past two seasons, including a pair of playoff wins and a No. 1 seed.
But underneath all that winning, in the background, the Lions were neglecting the offensive line -- the very thing that led the charge for the franchise’s turnaround.
First it was Jonah Jackson, but that wasn’t a deadly blow. But now Frank Ragnow is gone. Kevin Zeitler is gone. Taylor Decker and Graham Glasgow are older and showing cracks.
Suddenly, Penei Sewell feels like the only real standout.
The offensive line is important to every football team, but it’s especially vital to the Lions because of how they built the rest of the roster.
Detroit made Jared Goff a $53 million per year quarterback because of how he performed behind an elite offensive line. For that contract to work out, the Lions had to stay committed to providing that caliber of protection.
Goff’s limitations are no secret: He’s an accurate passer when he has time in the pocket, but apply a little pressure and, well, you saw what happened Sunday night.
Goff is especially vulnerable when pressed up the middle, and the Lions went into this season with a proverbial redshirt sixth-rounder and a rookie at the guard spots and made an aging Glasgow switch positions to center.
That was never going to cut it.
It’s nobody’s fault that Ragnow retired in the offseason, or that Zeitler signed closer to home. But the Lions had countless opportunities to reinforce the most important unit on their team, and it really feels like they waited too long.
Now, waking up on this Monday, it sure seems like 2025 is doomed. When the Lions are at their best, they’re running the football effectively and giving Goff time to execute play-action.
This offensive line hasn’t yet shown the ability to dominate on the ground or in pass protection, and that’s not likely to change in late November or December.
The Lions have struggled to generate any offense against the four strong defensive teams they’ve faced, averaging 15.75 points per game in losses to the Packers, Chiefs, Vikings, and Eagles.
It’s clear this offensive line isn’t Super Bowl caliber, and where is the improvement going to come from? There’s no free agency. No midseason draft. The trade deadline is long past.
Help isn’t coming. And for a Lions team that entered 2025 with one very clear goal -- to win the Super Bowl -- that feels very far away.