An Overview of The 2021 Detroit Lions

Although the Lions won’t be very competitive this season, there are a lot of reasons to be optimistic as a lions fan as I believe they are just now starting to head in the right direction after firing Matt Patricia. The firing of Patricia was long overdue and he honestly never should’ve gotten the job, to begin with. Given he was a defensive coach coming from New England, you would’ve expected his group of DBs with great upside to at least play serviceable, and to also not have the worst tackling grades in the league, but this all somehow came true. Hiring Dan Cambell given the circumstances the franchise is in was a great move. One thing we are hopeful about with Campbell is that he will make roles on both offense and defense conducive to each of his players and it was obvious the amount of effort he got from his TEs coaching in New Orleans. If there were any team where it made sense to hire a coach, not in charge of playcalling, it is the lions as this culture was simply spiraling fast and they needed a competent leader to halt the disaster from getting any worse. It was only fair for the Lions to give Stafford the respect he deserved by trading him to a ready-to-win franchise and Campbell is the perfect guy to establish a new culture to build from.

Detroit Offense

Overall OFF Grade: 71.2 (29)

Following the departure of star QB Matthew Stafford, the Lions still have a solid guy in Jared Goff to at least play serviceable until a long-term answer is available. Goff’s biggest flaw is his lack of mobility and inability to advert pressure from the pass rush which showed up at times when LAs O-line was hurt. This shouldn’t be much of an issue for Detroit as they’ve established a very solid core of Lineman with Erick Decker, Frank Ragnow, and now with an elite prospect in Penei Sewell. I would also highly anticipate a breakout season from the TE, T.J. Hockenson now that he is paired with a coach who specialized in TEs. What makes this offense so poor is their laughable group of receivers. Following the loss of Kenny Golladay, Marvin Jones, and Golden Tate, Detroit may as well have another team’s backup crew of receivers to start. They signed Tyrell Williams to be their number one option, who was a massive overpay in Oakland and would be a backup for almost any other team. Breshad Perriman will not be a stable number two and you can only hope that either Amon-Ra St Brown or Quintez Cephus steps up and makes an impact. This offense may have a few dominant rushing performances but definitely won’t be exciting very many fans.

Detroit Defense

Overall DEF Grade: 71.5 (27)

Admittedly, a few years ago I myself was really excited and hopeful to see this defense develop and run the Belichick-style defense with success, but that later only came true for Miami. Unfortunately, Patricia was simply not fit to competently achieve this on his own, let alone to just gain the respect of his players. Despite having a rather talented corner group in 2020 with 4th Overall pick Jeff Okudah, a veteran Desmond Trufant in addition to the underrated Safety in Tracy Walker, they gave up more passing yards than any other defense and had miserable tackling as a team. There is hope for this to turn around with the addition of Aaron Glenn (former New Orleans DBs coach) at D-Coordinator who proved to get great development in his DBs with the Saints who have the star players Marshon Latimore and Marcus Williams. I would expect Jeff Okudah to begin reaching some of his elite potential in 2021 if not in the next two years and would also be expecting better effort in tackling from the secondary this season.

Projected Record: 3-14 (4th DIV)

Detroit 2021 Schedule

• Individual grades are based on scale of 50-100.