Notes: Why the Detroit Lions are a unique offseason darling

About a week ago, The Athletic Football Show with Mike Tice and Robert Mays got a question about preseason hype from caller Patrick in Houston: Are the Lions this year’s offseason darling or are they actually good? Robert Mays (the host on the left side of the video clips) pointed out two things. First, he thought carrying over late-season success (or failure) by a team/quarterback over as a predictor to the next season as the basis for expectations can be a mistake. The players on the roster or surrounding the quarterback may not be the same the following season, the rest of the league and competition may not be the same, and so on: “it is not always the case, that’s not how development and trajectory works. It’s not always linear like that.” As soon as he started on that point, co-host Nate Tice’s head immediately went to nodding along.

The second item, though, pulled in the other direction. Mays felt “a lot of that preseason hype is typically derived from star power and skill position players.” After a murmured “mm hmm” from Tice, Mays exclaims “the Lions’ hype is derived from the opposite of that!” to Tice’s amusement. “They don’t have any star power or skill position players! That’s not why people are excited about them!”

To that, Tice added that preseason hype can go wrong when folks “only focus on what could go right as opposed to what could go wrong. What are the weaknesses that could go wrong?” His reality check for the 2023 squad matched what oddsmakers in Vegas thought (over/under at 9.5 wins): “even a successful year for the Lions this year might include seven losses.” Most of our readers were not far from that with predictions centering around six losses, but increased expectations are definitely a thing heading into next season. Even our own fearless leadership team of Jeremy and Erik and Packers fans thought the Lions should win the division.

Going back to why this time is different with the Lions in 2023, Mays brought up offensive playcalling incompatibilities with three preseason hype flops in recent memory: Nathaniel Hackett with the Broncos, the Freddie Kitchens experience with the Browns, and old favorite Joe Lombardi running the high octane Chargers offense into the ground. On the other hand, according to Mays, “that’s an aspect of the Lions that you feel best about. . . Again, they’re just a very different version than were used to seeing with these teams who get a lot of publicity and a lot of excitement heading into a season.”

Granted, it’s not all rainbows and sunshine. Both hosts saw risks with the offensive skill positions (pass catchers in particular) and defensive unit overhauls. Tice wondered about front-seven defensive depth, both of them didn’t have a good read on how the secondary would be in 2023 since all of the cornerbacks are different, and so on. Both hosts reiterated how much they thought the Lions were a different animal than the usual preseason darling, though, with uncommon strengths like huge buy-in from players and coaches and an incredible offensive line as the foundation of the offense. Is this time going to be different? We sure hope so, but now let’s move on to the rest of your Weekend notes:

• This week’s episode of Tim Twentyman’s podcast Twentyman in the Huddle was all about the offensive line. Assistant offensive line coach Steve Oliver and veteran lineman Halapoulivaati Vaitai were guests on the show. You can watch the entire episode on the team’s official YouTube channel.

• In case anybody wanted the data, Jared Goff is not a scrambler (but you all knew that already):

• The team posted lots of new video on their website’s video archive section. There is a cool short video of OTA week 2 highlights plus media appearance videos from Thursday. There are sessions for Penei Sewell, Cam Sutton, and Derrick Barnes. The compilation video on the team’s official YouTube channel also has the Kerby Joseph session in it (between Sutton and Barnes), which you won’t want to miss.

• We love Jack Fox, but this is pretty damn impressive. Remember how the Lions didn’t punt for the first time in a home game since 1971 against the Jaguars in Week 13? Apparently keeping drives alive was a thing last year for the offense:

• On the coaching side, the team posted video of head coach Dan Campbell’s session and offensive coordinator Ben Johnson’s session. For the first three seconds of Johnson’s session, you can see the duct taped picture of Aaron Glenn he wore and the moment he peeled it off. Kyle Meinke at MLive wrote an article about Johnson’s comments about “going back to basics heading into Year 2.”

• The 2024 NFL Draft dates are official:

• Former Lions tight end Jesse James signed with the New Orleans Saints several days ago.

• The Tom Grossi 30in30 fundraising stadium tour was in Detroit on Friday: