The Detroit Lions surprised a lot of people in 2022. Jared Goff was amazing and easily within the top 10 quarterback rankings on the season. The offense was efficient and high scoring. The defense did leave a bit to be desired, but a very successful campaign overall.
Detroit Lions 2023 Outlook
At the beginning of the season, everyone expected Detroit to play poorly. Had they played poorly, they would have had another high draft pick. The thought was that they would draft a replacement for Goff. Unfortunately, with as well as they played, they now have a mid-round pick. They do still have the Los Angeles Rams pick in the first round thanks to the Matthew Stafford trade. With the Rams winning a few games at the end of the season this will only amount to the number six pick and may be too late to draft a quarterback. The real question is are they willing to try and trade up for one of the top quarterbacks? Goff played very well and would have helped the Lions to the playoffs had they not lost the tiebreaker to the Seattle Seahawks. Are they willing to stick with Goff as their quarterback for the foreseeable future?
Jared Goff
It wasn’t that long ago, as quarterback of the Rams, that Goff took his team to the Super Bowl. People seem to forget that time in his career. After that, he had a subpar season, and the coaching staff made a decision to look elsewhere for a viable veteran quarterback. Subsequently, the Rams found a trade partner in the Lions and made a big trade to acquire Stafford from Detroit. In his first season as a Ram, Stafford led them to a Super Bowl victory. Goff had a middling first season in Detroit, where they ended up with the number two pick in the draft. This past season, however, Goff played extremely well and almost took his team to the playoffs. They did knock out the rival Green Bay Packers from making the playoffs which for Detroit is a huge win.
2023 NFL Draft
The consensus is that Detroit will be sticking with Goff for the time being and are looking to shore up their defense. Most mock drafts around the league have Detroit picking defensive for at least the first few picks, which makes sense. The defense is the only piece that seemed to hold them back this past season. A name that keeps popping up around their sixth pick is Bryan Bresee out of Clemson who would be a great addition to the team and locker room for them. As great as he could be for the team though, their real holes seemed to be in the secondary. Based on this, one might think that they could be looking to add a top cornerback or even a safety depending on who might be available in free agency. With a little over a month and a half left until the draft and mere days, until free agency starts, we will wait and see what the Lions decide to do.
Main Photo: Jeff Hanisch – USA TODAY Sports
