It happens nearly every season. A last-place team from the prior NFL year rockets to the top of its division one quick season later.
It’s a feat the Detroit Lions are hoping to pull off in 2020 after the abysmal, injury-plagued 3-12-1 finish from a year ago. And while there are longer shots to make the dramatic turnaround, the Lions are not one of the three best candidates among the eight bottom-dwellers from last season to pull it off.
USA TODAY ranked the Lions fourth on its recent list, and that’s a fair assessment. Based on a number of factors, from roster improvement to schedule difficulty to quality of the division, Detroit doesn’t belong among the top three candidates.
Only the Cincinnati Bengals have a deeper hole to climb out of than the 10-win gap between the last-place Lions and first-place Packers in the NFC North. Cincinnati finished 12 games behind the Ravens in the AFC North. No other cellar-dweller was more than eight games behind the reigning divisional champ.
Beyond the big gap to the top, no team faced a bigger gulf up to third place from the bottom than Detroit. Chicago finished 8-8, five wins better than Detroit. Even the lowly Bengals stayed within four games of the third-place Browns in their division. That’s a lot of ground to make up against three teams that finished with non-losing records. In that aspect, only the Cardinals in the NFC West have more to overcome.
Expect the Lions to be better, perhaps significantly so, in 2020. But the Dolphins (no longer up against Tom Brady), Chargers, Cardinals and maybe even the Redskins all have better chances of winning their respective divisions than the Lions do this fall. It’s a long way to the top of the NFC North.
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