By Mark Halpern
The Detroit Lions and the entire NFC North will play a powerful division. The Lions are the reigning NFC North champions and with good reason. Goff was better than the old Goff. Goff not only had plenty of time thanks to a formidable offensive line, he was given the best weapons to get the job done.
Throughout the first half of the season, the Lions were the talk of the league. Rookie Jahmyr Gibbs had a fantastic rookie year amassing 945 yards, 10 touchdowns, and a 5.2 avg per carry. Gibbs also had 52 receptions. I don’t know why I say rookie because he acted like a season player and we can go higher than that cause most of today’s running backs put up those numbers. Gibbs even though he has a year under his belt is reminding me of the great Marshall Faulk. Faulk could run, block, and receive; this is one of the main reasons the Rams excelled with him on that team and it made Kurt Warner’s job easier. Analysts say you have 3.6 sec to see your target and get it to that player but, mind you have defense gunning for you. If you have a player like Gibbs and the talent, he brings we could be seeing the second coming of Faulk.
The receiving core what can you say besides they’re young and also ranked in the top 5 offenses in the NFL. Picture yourself as Goff for a minute and when you look behind you have Gibbs on the top right is Amron St Brown, to your left Jamesson Williams who has yet to show why he is there due to injury not bad play. This will be his first season where he starts healthy. Then comes the big guy Sam LaPorta who was drafted to replace T.J. Hockenson. When that trade between the Vikings and Lions happened, I had no words to describe what was going through my mind. However, the Lions wasted no time replacing him and it was like watching Hockenson’s younger twin playing. La Porta was a huge reason why the Lions were so successful. If C.J Stroud did not have the year he had then La Porta wins MVP.
Now every team is not perfect but the Lions seemed poised to be perfect after them by week the defense looked tired. Teams that beat them in the second half weren’t stopping the offense because they were just clicking. I never like making excuses for any team, even my own, however, the Lions’ defense that started the first half was electric. Once the second half of their schedule began it was like the defense forgot how to play. This team if the defense would have performed like they were averaging 4.5 sacks a game in the first half but then a poor 1.3 per game. This made it easy for opposing Quarterbacks to have more time and find their receivers. This Lions defense has a huge challenge ahead of them and not just from their division they have a tough schedule.
As I said in the beginning the NFC North except the cheese heads has 3 teams that have distinct possibilities of making the playoffs, with the very young teams of the Bears and Vikings, this division will not only be the most competitive this season but probably the most exciting.
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