The Detroit Lions' 2025 season did not go the way anyone expected it to, or wanted it to. This is not a team looking to struggle for better draft positioning. This is a team constructed to win now.
Their 9-8 record and 4th place finish in the NFC North was a wake up call, in a way, to the veterans on the team looking to bounce back this season: they cannot play with their food in 2026, because everyone around them is getting just as good as them - or better.
But, one silver lining came out of that poor finish. The Lions have a 4th place schedule to play through this season, which is something that 97.1 FM's Jon Jansen and Jim Costa think can help them return to that 2024 form quite easily.
Lions could bounce back to 2024 form thanks to ease of schedule
"I think people are going, 'oh, the Lions ended last season on a sour note. I don't know, we missed our window,' whatever. Saints Week 1 at home. Buffalo Week 2, whatever is, you could call it a loss. Jets, Panthers, Arizona...4-1 going into the bye week?," said Costa regarding Detroit's easy start to their season.
Jansen responded: "Right, but the question is gonna be, will they be, 'well, they beat a bunch of bad teams.'" Analysts, in Jansen's view here, would discount Detroit's dominant start to the season if they beat those likely sub-.500 teams but lose to the Bills.
Costa's defense:
"Coming out of the bye is when we get our taste of the division. You get two weeks to prepare for Green Bay, and that game is in Detroit. And then you're hosting Minnesota in Detroit. You start 6-1. You start really throwing logs on the fire. The 2024 Lions won by an average of 11 points per game. The majority of their wins were double digits. If Detroit is...blowing people out every single week, and they're 6-1 on the schedule and beating teams in the division, the city's gonna be alive.
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The Lions' first two divisional games, as noted, are at home. This could give them a huge edge against the Packers and Vikings, especially since those are their first two contests following their bye week. But, they obviously cannot afford to get cute - even if they head into that Packers game 4-1, they could easily fall close to .500 if they drop those two divisional contests.
They're walking a razor thin edge this season, especially since they don't seem to have nearly as fortified as a defense as they would've hoped to headed into training camp. Their offense can always turn things up, but if their defense can't get a stop, can they survive shootouts in each and every contests against equally as potent offenses.
If the Lions are going to make a deep postseason run - or, at the very least, find themselves with favorable seeding and possibly as the top team in the NFC - they need to take advantage of an easier schedule laid out for them.
Looking at the NBA as a prime example of this, with the New York Knicks easily defeating the entire slate of Eastern Conference teams laid out in front of them and then taking down the favorite in the NBA Finals, the Lions could and should copy this formula.
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