Allen Park — If pride comes before the fall, the Detroit Lions are doing everything to their power to make sure their pride doesn’t stumble in the face of growing expectations.
A perpetual underdog, the Lions find themselves in the unusual role of favorites this offseason. National pundits and oddsmakers are head over heels for the long-suffering franchise after the team won eight of its final 10 games last season, positioning them as the frontrunners for the NFC North. It’s a wild sentiment when you consider the team hasn’t won a division title in three decades.
The optimism surrounding the Lions isn’t lost on the players. But, to their credit, they seem to understand those positive feelings don’t equate to future success. Quarterback Jared Goff scoffed at the notion the Lions are favored to win anything.
“Of course you have a sense of it,” Goff said. “You finished 9-8 and had a good finish to our year. We finished 8-2 in our last 10 games, but that doesn’t mean anything for us now. It really doesn’t. We’ve got new players in here. We’ve lost some guys, we’ve gained some guys and (we’ll see) what that will sum out to and then at the end of the season is yet to be seen. And there’s a lot of work to do in order to decide that answer. It’s certainly more aggressive, it’s certainly slightly more urgent and excited and all that stuff. But there’s still tons of things to be done before you can start being able to say who’s a favorite here or there.”
That’s the theme as the Lions players returned to the practice facility this week for the first set of organized team activities, with a focus on strength training and conditioning. Of course, these sessions are voluntary, but like most teams around the league, attendance is high. The players understand this where any successful season begins.
“We can’t just put ourselves in the playoffs or the Super Bowl,” defensive tackle Alim McNeill said. “Like we got to still get there, still make it there. So, you know, it’s just one day at a time, just getting better, 1% better every day. I guess that’s how I’m taking it right now, just one day at a time. I’m not even thinking about it, to be honest. I’m just thinking about, ‘What’s the next workout and how can we get better?'”
Still, players can admit it’s nice to come into the offseason program with genuine positivity surrounding the program, even if there’s an understanding there’s plenty of work to be done to accomplish the upcoming season’s goals.
“It’s nice to come into the building with expectations,” offensive tackle Taylor Decker, the roster’s longest-tenured player said. “It’s an enjoyable thing to look forward to next year knowing we laid a foundation the prior year, and that’s something we did together, as a group. There’s excitement for what the future can hold, but ultimately, it’s a dead-horse statement, like beating a dead horse, you have to come in and your first day of OTAs, you’ve got to do your testing. Then you got to do your stretching, your soft tissue, your lifting, your running. That’s what’s important today. That’s the thing about this league: Are you going to come to work every single day? If you don’t come to work now, if you didn’t start working out until just now, well you’re not going to have the results you want this season.”
Decker spent the end of last season railing against the “Same Old Lions” moniker, insisting this group, this culture is breaking from that mold of constant disappointment. But he’s just as cautious as his quarterback when it comes to thinking the road ahead is any smoother because of anything that happened last season.
“I’m not going to sit here and say that we’re the team to chase,” Decker said. “Do I think we have a good football team? Yeah. But that statement is coming from what we did last year. You see it with teams all the time; they have a great year and then they don’t the following year. It’s like what have you done for me lately? What have you done today? I don’t care what you did last year. I don’t care what you did two years ago. But I do think we have the foundation for a good football team. I do think we’ve added good pieces and good staff, but can we get that to all come together?
“…I see what people’s expectations are for the Lions,” Decker said. “But that is all in theory to me right now. And I said it last year toward the end of the season, we were getting all this love and everything, and I’m like, ‘It’s great, but I remember when we got s— on, because we won three games and people thought we were a joke.’ That’s what I remember. And I don’t want to go back to that, so I’m not going to look forward and kind of like rest on my laurels, because I don’t want to go back to that. It’s fun when there is excitement and there’s something to look forward to and something to chase. And people can say that we’re going to whatever — first round of the playoffs or win the division — but we haven’t done it yet. It’s great in theory. But we got to do it still.”
One thing is clear, there’s a different aura around the building. Last season’s finish created an unmistakable confidence the Lions are ready to contend. And the moves the team has made this offseason, pointedly addressing weaknesses through free agency, to be followed with a fresh influx of talent from upcoming draft, only amplifies the sentiment it’s Detroit’s time.
“This is my third offseason here now and you can see the aggressiveness in (the front office) and it trickles into us,” Goff said. “We see everything. We know what’s going on. In a couple weeks the draft will come and there will be more of that there, but the aggressiveness of taking our shot and knowing that we have a team that can compete with anybody and really try to go make some noise this year.
“There’s a vibe, there’s a feeling that you have,” Goff said. “Nothing truly tangible. … But there is an overwhelming feeling of optimism and excitement for what we think we can do, for sure.”
jdrogers@detroitnews.com
Twitter: @Justin_Rogers