The Detroit Lions are widely expected to be one of the best teams in the NFL in 2024 after a trip to the NFC Championship Game last season. At the very least, they should be a playoff team.
But that is not how one unnamed NFL executive views Detroit in 2024. According to The Athletic's Mike Sando, who recently compiled rankings of NFC teams based on the opinions of league execs, one of them has the Lions ranked No. 9 in the conference, which means the exec doesn't view Detroit as even a playoff team.
That is a far cry from where other executives have the Lions ranked. Two had Detroit at No. 2, one had them at No. 1, and another had them at No. 5. The Lions' median ranking ended up at No. 2. Here's why the one executive has Detroit so low.
“They treat third down like second down, and that was something that became very public as they went deeper,” the executive said. “Teams are going to pick up on that, and they play a tougher schedule, and there’s more (pressure) on them and we’ll see what it looks like.”
According to Warren Sharp of Sharp Football Analysis, the Lions have the 15th-most difficult schedule in the NFL based on projected win totals by Vegas oddsmakers, so Detroit doesn't exactly have a daunting slate.
But even if the Lions had the most difficult schedule in the NFL, they still deserve the benefit of the doubt after what they did last season.
Not only are the Lions returning a lot of the same roster, they have made some key additions on defense, which was the team's biggest weakness in 2023. That unit should be better, and the offense should be elite once again.
Knowing all that, this is a wildly disrespectful ranking for the Lions and makes even less sense when you consider that the same executive has the Green Bay Packers ranked No. 2 despite having a young roster led by an unproven quarterback.
