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The Detroit Lions’ safety Brian Branch has made a bold declaration ahead of the 2025 NFL season, asserting that the team is better than last year and hungry as they aim to finally break through to their first Super Bowl appearance. After a historic 2024 campaign ended in disappointment, Branch believes the Lions have emerged stronger and more unified.
Detroit’s 2024 regular season was the best in franchise history. They posted a 15-2 record, setting team records in points per game (33.2) and point differential (+222), and secured the No. 1 seed in the NFC. Despite their success, the Lions were eliminated in the Divisional Round, falling 45-31 to the Washington Commanders. That loss was the second consecutive year Detroit exited the playoffs earlier than expected.
“I feel like we’re better than last year,” Branch told Rainer Sabin of the Detroit Free Press. “We’re hungry, and I feel that’s gonna separate us. Our chemistry is on a whole ‘nother level.”
Brian Branch, who played nearly the entire season and earned his first Pro Bowl selection, says the adversity has galvanized the team.
“We went through the ups and downs. We fought together in tough games. We have been in a game where it depended on us to win,” he said. “Once you have a group that has bought in and has gone through trials and tribulations, we feel invincible.”
The Lions’ defensive unit was ravaged by injuries in 2024. Key players, including Aidan Hutchinson (fractured fibula and tibia), Marcus Davenport, Derrick Barnes, Alex Anzalone (broken arm), Malcolm Rodriguez (ACL), Alim McNeill (ACL), and Carlton Davis (broken jaw), missed significant time. Despite this, Detroit finished with the seventh-ranked scoring defense and maintained the NFL’s top-ranked scoring offense.
With many of those injured players set to return, Branch is optimistic.
“Last year, injuries, they were kind of against us. This year, everybody’s healthy that is coming back. And we’re just hungry. We’ve still got the same mission and the same goals,” he said. “We’re trying to get that Super Bowl.”
Detroit’s trajectory under head coach Dan Campbell has been unmistakably upward. Following a 3-13-1 season in 2021, the Lions improved to 9-8 in 2022, 12-5 in 2023, and 15-2 in 2024. Their 2023 campaign included a run to the NFC Championship Game, the franchise’s first since 1991.
However, the 2025 season presents new challenges. The Lions lost offensive coordinator Ben Johnson and defensive coordinator Aaron Glenn to head coaching jobs, and veteran center Frank Ragnow retired. In response, Detroit promoted Kelvin Sheppard and John Morton as new coordinators and reinforced their roster by adding secondary pieces D.J. Reed, Avonte Maddox, and Rock Ya-Sin. They also drafted DT Tyleik Williams in the first round and OL Tate Ratledge in the second.
The Lions will also face a daunting schedule. Eight of their nine road games are against teams that finished above .500 in 2024, the most in NFL history, and they’ll play both Super Bowl LIX participants on the road.
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