Coming off a deep playoff run in 2023 and a 15-2 regular season in 2024, the Detroit Lions’ expectations inside Allen Park were sky-high. Players talked openly about unfinished business. Coaches preached urgency. Fans circled “Super Bowl contender” next to the Lions’ name before Week 1 even kicked off.
And then the season happened.
Between a brutal schedule, shaky offensive line play, and a defense that just couldn’t stay healthy, the Lions stumbled out of contention and officially missed the postseason for the first time since 2022. It wasn’t the script anybody expected, and now everyone is trying to unpack what went wrong.
One of the louder voices weighing in? Fox Sports 1’s Nick Wright, and he didn’t exactly hold back.
“Was the Super Bowl window ever really open?”
According to Wright, the Lions’ failure to capitalize didn’t come out of nowhere, he believes Detroit may have been riding momentum more than reality.
“I don’t know that the Lions’ Super Bowl window was ever actually open,” Wright said as quoted by Lions OnSI. “As good as Dan Campbell’s been, there’s been one season where they’ve won a playoff game since he’s been there. They won two, and then they blew a lead in the NFC Championship game.”
In other words, Wright thinks Detroit’s magical rise masked structural cracks that resurfaced in 2025.
Culture can elevate you. Culture can change a franchise. But culture alone doesn’t win chess matches in January.
And that’s where Wright thinks the Lions took their biggest hit.
Losing Ben Johnson and Aaron Glenn? Yeah… that mattered.
The Lions didn’t just lose players last offseason, they lost two of the sharpest minds on the sideline.
Ben Johnson took over the Chicago Bears and immediately turned them into a legitimate NFC North contender. Aaron Glenn left for a head-coaching job of his own. And while plenty of fans shrugged at the time, figuring Detroit’s culture was strong enough to survive, Wright believes those departures ripped away Detroit’s biggest competitive advantage.
“I think the loss of Ben Johnson is real,” Wright said. “I think the loss of Aaron Glenn… doesn’t mean that he wasn’t a super valuable defensive coordinator.”
He wasn’t ripping John Morton or Kelvin Sheppard, but he was pointing out that the Lions no longer had the schematic edge they once did.
Culture gets you out of the basement. Schematics keep you in the penthouse.
Detroit fell somewhere in between.
Jared Goff: Good… but limited when things go sideways
Wright also revisited his long-standing take on Jared Goff, calling him a “civilian” quarterback in a league where some guys wear capes.
And the Christmas Day collapse didn’t help the narrative.
After protecting the ball most of the year, Goff was directly involved in five turnovers in Detroit’s elimination loss. That was the kind of performance that makes analysts and fans question ceiling vs. floor.
“If everything is just right, he can be exceptional,” Wright said. “He’s accurate, he’s on time, he can operate your offense. But if things get a little off, I don’t think he can fix things for you. That’s just a hard way to operate.”
That’s not a condemnation, but it is a reminder of what the Lions must build around him:
- Elite blocking
- Strong run game
- Stable, coordinated structure
When those things crack? The margin disappears fast.
So… where do the Lions go from here?
This season will sting for a while. There’s no way around that.
But there’s also clarity.
The Lions don’t need a culture reboot. They don’t need to blow up the roster. They don’t need to panic.
What they do need is:
- Smarter game-planning
- Stronger trenches
- A renewed commitment to coaching excellence
The Lions proved they can build something legitimate.
2026 will determine whether they can sustain it.
