Pride of Detroit
With no undefeated team left in the 2025 NFL season, every team’s weaknesses have now been exposed, and analysts are looking at this season with a new perspective. And given that the Detroit Lions have been mowing down opponents left and right, it should probably come as little surprise that they have climbed to the the top of most power rankings. It also helps when the two teams who were commonly put above them—the Eagles and Bills—were handed their first loss and look flawed.
Let’s take a look at how things shook out in this week’s power rankings.
Let’s welcome the Lions back to a familiar place: the top spot in our power rankings.
While new offensive coordinator John Morton hasn’t (yet) captured the league’s attention in the same way his predecessor Ben Johnson did, Morton has maintained the best feature of this Detroit offense: Anybody can be the star. Tight end Sam LaPorta, receiver Amon-Ra St. Brown, and running back Jahmyr Gibbs each have had their turn at chunk gains, and it feels like Morton always has the right counterpunch dialed up when defenses adjust. Few teams make it look as easy as Detroit does.
After the Eagles and Bills lost, it wasn’t hard to vault the Lions to the top spot, with Detroit having hit another gear since the thorough beating suffered in Week 1 at Green Bay. Sunday’s performance was great for three quarters, but then the Bengals went into turbo mode and almost made it a game again. All of the top teams have had games such as this, so I am not going to make too much of what happened in the fourth quarter. Knowing Dan Campbell, he’ll mine it as a source of inspiration. But there remains the question of just how good this defense is. The formula of containing the run and forcing turnovers worked until the Lions got overaggressive and less disciplined late in the game. We’ve seen far more good defensively than bad over the past three-plus games, but the true test will come against the Chiefs on Sunday night.
We can start getting cynical this time of year, especially if our team, or fantasy lineup, or both is already in the toilet. But David Montgomery getting to play in front of his sister for the first time was incredible. Anyway, the Lions are playing with steam right now and the running game is still rounding into form.
From ESPN Staff, excerpt from Eric Woodyard:
Fantasy surprise: WR Jameson Williams
After his first 1,000-yard season in 2024, Williams has started slowly in 2025. He hasn’t logged more than 50 receiving yards in four games, as he works to get in sync with veteran quarterback Jared Goff and overcome...
