The Detroit Lions have as many bona fide stars on their roster as any team in football, but sportsbooks are seemingly doubting their status as Super Bowl contenders heading into 2026.
ESPN surveyed NFL executives, coaches and scouts to rank the league’s top 10 players at 11 positions. Detroit led all teams with nine players who made the total list.
Despite this, the Lions are currently fifth in odds to win the NFC, via DraftKings Sportsbook. They have the fifth-shortest odds, trailing the Los Angeles Rams, Seattle Seahawks, Philadelphia Eagles and Green Bay Packers.
How does that math up? It begs the question: if the league is so high on the top-end players on Detroit’s roster, why aren’t the Lions seen as more of a threat to win their conference?
Why does the NFL respect the Detroit Lions more than sportsbooks?
A couple of arguments come to mind. Chief among them is the health (or lack thereof) of two of those top 10 players, safeties Brian Branch and Kerby Joseph.
Branch is coming off a torn Achilles tendon suffered in December that threatens to jeopardize the burst and acceleration that helps make him such a game-changing player. Joseph is dealing with a mysterious, possibly degenerative knee injury, and even the most optimistic people about his status would have to admit nobody really knows what he’ll look like if he returns. Two of Detroit’s studs could be essentially wiped out.
There is also the ongoing debate surrounding quarterback Jared Goff. He has been one of the league’s most productive quarterbacks over the past few seasons and is arguably coming off his best season in Detroit. The five-time Pro Bowler finished second in the NFL in passing yards and touchdowns in 2025 despite poor offensive line play and a play-caller change midway through the season.
But Goff’s critics have always tabbed him as someone who is a product of the situation around him, struggles with pressure and doesn’t have upside as a playmaker like the other top quarterbacks in the NFL.
As overstated as some of those criticisms are (look at the situation he had last year!), it may explain why the Lions are behind a team like Green Bay, which has a quarterback in Jordan Love who doesn’t face those particular issues.
A team like Green Bay has similar question marks on defense, but they’re above the Lions even with Detroit’s loaded offense. That is admittedly strange, but the Packers swept their heated division rival last year, and perhaps Love is seen as more of an ascending player than Goff.
And while Sewell is great and certainly deserves the No. 1 tackle spot, the unit he headlines is not up to that level. The Lions' O-line was one of the league’s worst last season and fared poorly in most advanced statistics (ninth-highest pressure rate allowed on non-blitzes, lowest time to throw, 10th-worst rushing stuff rate).
Detroit added offensive tackle Blake Miller in the first round this past NFL draft and signed a new starting center in Cade Mays this offseason. The line should be better, but we still need to see it.
The Lions have all the tools to be the best offense in the NFL, but it will still require a major rebound from the starting five up front and a great first year from new offensive coordinator Drew Petzing.
The defense is also riddled with question marks. The safeties are, again, a huge unknown because of their health and we don’t know when or if they’ll get back to All-Pro form.
The offseason release of Terrion Arnold and veteran D.J. Reed coming off a shaky, injury-riddled year also means the cornerback room doesn’t have much to be super confident about in terms of championship-level upside.
Los Angeles is the overwhelming Super Bowl favorite after an offseason of wheeling and dealing, and Seattle is the defending champ. Then there's Philadelphia, which appears devoid of many of Detroit's glaring weaknesses, particularly on defense, so those teams’ placements make sense.
And while Aidan Hutchinson is a great player and easily a top-five edge rusher in football, the guys opposite him (D.J Wonnum, Payton Turner, rookie Derrick Moore) don’t look particularly threatening.
Unless Moore has a good rookie season out of the gate, it looks like it’ll be pretty easy to double-team Hutchinson and live with the results, which is what teams have done for essentially his entire career.
It’s a similar story with the linebacker room. Campbell is one of the league’s best, but the offseason departure of veteran Alex Anzalone means Malcolm Rodriguez is stepping into a full-time starting role for the first time in four years. Derrick Barnes is also coming off a bad season and his fit in the defense is questionable.
And there’s even more wishful thinking required to see this defense as contender-level. It would take mostly healthy seasons from Branch and Joseph, career years from players like Reed and Rodriguez, defensive tackle Alim McNeill getting back to pre-injury form, a breakout from fellow DT Tyleik Williams and finally one of the edge rushers to emerge as a serious threat next to Hutchinson.
So is the Lions’ proverbial “Super Bowl window” closed? Not necessarily, but the path to contention is more complicated than it was in 2023 and 2024.
It would also help, of course, if the Lions did not have several starters on injured reserve by season’s end. A championship run for this team is possible, albeit a lot to ask. But Detroit is as loaded with stars as any team, and those players could get them pretty far in 2026, health permitting.
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