Two-time defending NFC North champions and winners of 15 games last season, the Lions are solidly established as NFL juggernauts after decades spent as anything but.
Dan Campbell knows it's time to start over once again from scratch, though, a journey made more difficult due to Detroit's grueling 2025 schedule.
Never one to trend pessimistic, the head coach instead is pumped for the slate of games awaiting the team.
"We've gotten to where we've gotten because we haven't been complacent and we have gone and put the work in again," Campbell told reporters Friday. "Done all the little things that you have to do to win games and win the division again, so we've got to do that all over again. And yeah, they do have to play us.
"I just think the challenge of it is what you really love. It's why you love this game. The NFL, that's why it's at its best. Not only here at home, our own division, going on the road, I mean some of these teams, it's awesome, man. To me, by the end of the year we ought to be just scarred up. We should be scarred up and ready to go, hardened for battle, and ready for the playoffs. It'll be nothing easy about it. Just to get through our own division is gonna be brutal, but it's the right kind of brutal."
Detroit's schedule is exactly that -- brutal. The Lions' strength of schedule is tied for second-hardest, and they'll have three Thursday games to contend with. Already part of a division with three 11-plus-win playoff teams a season ago, Campbell and Co. also face a particularly dangerous journey on the road.
Of their nine away games, seven come against 2024 playoff teams, including both Super Bowl participants, the Ravens and the Commanders, who knocked them out of the postseason. Their two games versus non-playoff teams are still tough -- against the Bengals in Week 5 and closing the regular season at Soldier Field against the Bears and their former offensive coordinator, Ben Johnson.
Other elements figure to make climbing back up the mountain to a postseason berth that much harder.
Detroit lost defensive coordinator Aaron Glenn to the Jets, meaning both sides of the ball will need to find footing without the consistency afforded them during the team's ascent the past few years. There's outside concern over the pass rush, which finished tied for 23rd last year with 37 sacks, after Aidan Hutchinson's season-ending leg injury exposed a lack of bite across the rest of the line. Despite playing only five games, he led the squad with 7.5 sacks. Just the talk of injuries brings up how beaten down the Lions were toward the end of the year before sputtering out in the playoffs.
But Campbell will have none of it.
He told reporters that Hutchinson, who has been fully cleared, is moving well and looking confident.
"There's nothing to tell me that he's not recovered or going to be recovered," Campbell said regarding the star pass rusher's recovery.
The offense is coming along under new OC John Morton, and Campbell expects boosts from players like Jameson Williams to aid the transition.
"He's got a ton of growth left," Campbell said of Williams. "He's had a good spring, and I don't want to get too far ahead of ourselves in OTAs, but there's so much versatility with him. There's so many things we can do just with his routes on the outside. I mean we can do things inside, but just with his speed, and he's gotten so much stronger, his ability to stop, put his foot in the ground -- when you can run like he can run and now you get to where you can stop on a dime, you talk about a hard cover. … We expect him to have a huge season. We really do, man. He's going to be one of these guys that we're going to lean on this year and is really going to be big for us."
As for injuries, Campbell correctly noted there's nothing he can do about them. If they strike again, he believes the Lions are well-equipped to deal with them.
No matter the narrative, whatever naysayers might point out about a potential Detroit demise, Campbell doesn't see it nearly the same way.
He's gone from three wins to nine to 12 to 15 during his time at the helm. Heading into Year 5, leaning on the players who fueled the turnaround alongside him, the next step has to be putting it all together for a ring.
"We're not worried about that we don't have pass rush, I'm not worried about that we lost two coordinators, I'm not worried about the injuries, I'm not worried about the Hall of Fame Game, I'm not worried about the schedule," Campbell said. "I think it's perfect. I think it lines up perfect. I think it's gonna be what's best for us with where we're at going into 2025. My fifth year here. The core of this team's fifth year. I really think it's exactly what we're gonna need. The timing is perfect."
