The Detroit Lions fell to 4-2 on the season, following a Week 6 loss to the Kansas City Chiefs. The Lions entered the game with multiple injuries and incurred several self-inflicted mistakes, and when you’re playing on the road against a top team in the NFL, those mistakes typically lead to losses.
For some NFL power rankers, the Lions are still considered one of the top teams in the League, and view the tough road loss as something that happens weekly in the NFL. For other rankers, they view the Lions’ loss as a sign that they’re not as good as previously thought, and exist somewhere in the middle of the 14 teams with at least four wins.
Let’s take a look at how things shook out in this week’s power rankings.
The Ringer: 2 (Previous rank: 1)
Their stint at the top was short-lived, but everything is still fine.
Getting dominated in prime time isn’t great, but there’s no shame in being on the wrong end of that type of vintage Chiefs performance. Detroit had a few uncharacteristic miscues on third and fourth downs on Sunday night, but it was largely able to move the ball with ease throughout the game.
As their banged-up defense gets healthy, I expect the Lions to get back to controlling games and beating lesser opponents. What’s harder to predict right now is whether Detroit’s two losses to legitimate contenders are blips or something that will come up for this team in January.
Yahoo Sports: 2 (Previous rank: 1)
There shouldn’t be much worry about the Lions. They lost on the road to an urgent Chiefs team with many injuries in the secondary. It happens. Detroit is still an excellent team, assuming its injury luck turns a bit.
ESPN: 2 (Previous rank: 1)
From ESPN Staff, excerpt from Eric Woodyard:
Lesson learned: Aidan Hutchinson has returned to elite form after severe leg injury.
A broken leg ended Hutchinson’s 2024 season early, but he picked up where he left off as one of the league’s elite pass rushers. He set a single-season team record by producing at least 1.0 sack in five consecutive games, in addition to another franchise mark of four straight games with a forced fumble. His 24 pressures are also the most in the NFL, as he’s moving fluidly after a tough rehabilitation process.
NFL.com: 2 (Previous rank: 1)
The Lions have struggled to slow down explosive offenses this season. They had issues at times with Green Bay in Week 1, Baltimore (with a healthy Lamar Jackson) in Week 3 and were stung several times by Patrick Mahomes on Sunday night. Now the high-flying Bucs come to Detroit this coming Monday night in another huge test for the defense. Allowing more yards and points to that caliber of offense is understandable, but the Lions must produce more splash plays defensively. Against the Packers, Ravens and Chiefs, they forced only one total turnover; they had eight turnovers forced in the other three games. The Chiefs essentially made it an eight-possession game for the Lions, limiting the visitors’ chances to score.
Sports Illustrated: 5 (Previous rank: 1)
Here’s Jared Goff going in depth about the incredibly disappointing (and possibly suspicious) touchdown the Lions got called back. One feature of SkyJudge in the future can be forcing the officials who might throw a flag on a cool play like this into temporary paralysis. AI can do anything, man.
CBS Sports: 5 (Previous rank: 1)
The secondary being crippled by injuries showed up in the loss to the Chiefs. Now they face a tough Tampa Bay offense led by Baker Mayfield.
The Athletic: 6 (Previous rank: 1)
Fantasy focus: Amon-Ra St. Brown
No one in the NFL has caught more regular-season passes than St. Brown (474) since 2021, when he joined the league as a fourth-round pick. (Only Travis Kelce has more when you count playoff games.) St. Brown caught nine more passes Sunday and is the ninth-highest fantasy scorer (21.02) in the league. That’s just about perfect for his managers, who drafted him 10th on average.
Sporting News: 7 (Previous rank: 2)
The Lions took their second outdoor setback of the season in Kansas City, the first since getting beat up in Green Bay. They will be happy to be home and go back into shootout mode with the Buccaneers in prime time.
USA Today: 11 (Previous rank: 1)
This is an appropriate place to take a pause − and ask if it’s appropriate to drop a team from first overall to 11th merely because a dominant four-game winning streak was snapped? Maybe not? But 1) the Lions, after feasting on lesser competition, were unequivocally handled in their losses by the best teams they’ve faced so far (Packers, Chiefs) and 2) the apparent upper echelon of the league is so tightly packed, with 14 teams sporting a winning percentage of .667 or better (plus three more that are 3-2), that it’s tough to distinguish those currently clustered together – as next Monday’s matchup with the Bucs will likely attest. DB Brian Branch’s self-inflicted suspension hardly helps, either.
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