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Detroit Lions remaining games ranked from easiest to hardest

A look at the remaining nine games for Detroit, ranked from the easiest to the most difficult as they appear from Week 10.

No games in the NFL are easy. Even the best teams invariably have a weird slip-up or two, and bottom-feeders rise up and pull off surprises almost weekly across the league.

Having said that, some games do appear easier than others. That is certainly true for the nine remaining games on the Detroit Lions regular season schedule. The playoff push is real for Detroit, and the relatively manageable schedule from Week 10 on out is part of the reason why the 6-2 Lions have a legit chance for a postseason bye in the NFC.

They’ll need to take care of business, of course. Let’s look at the remaining nine games for Detroit, ranked from the easiest to the most difficult as they appear from Week 10.

Alabama football bowl game predictions are split

Alabama can still reach the College Football Playoff, but experts are projecting the Tide to fall just short.

The second half of the 2023 regular season has begun for Alabama and the College Football Playoff is still within reach despite the early-season loss to Texas at home. Projections, however, have the Crimson Tide just missing the playoffs.

The latest bowl game predictions by ESPN’s Kyle Bonagura and Mark Schlabach (subscription required) are split on Alabama.

Bonagura’s projection has the Tide facing Oklahoma in the Cotton Bowl, while Schlabach has Alabama also facing the Sooners, but in the Peach Bowl.

While no reasoning was offered, the fact that both experts predict Alabama to take on Oklahoma is very interesting. The Sooners sit atop the Big 12 through Week 7 and appear poised to compete for a spot in the CFP.

This would certainly be an interesting matchup between two teams with late-season playoff aspirations.

Roll Tide Wire will continue to follow Alabama football and postseason projections as the 2023 regular season progresses.

Contact/Follow us @RollTideWire on Twitter, and like our page on Facebook to follow ongoing coverage of Alabama news, notes and opinion. You can also follow AJ Spurr on Twitter @SpurrFM.

Predicting the 2023 NFL season results for each division

2023 NFL regular season final standings prediction for each division

The 2023 NFL season has arrived, and not a moment too soon. All 32 fan bases are ready to cheer their teams in meaningful football games in what looks like one of the most wide-open seasons the league has seen in some time.

This is my final preseason prognostication of how the season will play out for each team, broken down by division.

Division winners are noted with an X, while wild card teams get a *

Alabama could suffer another two-loss season according to latest projection

Alabama dropped two games last season and did not make the College Football Playoff, what will it take to get there in 2023?

Alabama football’s 2022 season ended with a New Year’s Six Bowl win over the Big 12 champion. With such an accolade and a 10-2 regular season record, the average college football fan would be ecstatic. However, Crimson Tide fans were not.

The annual expectation in Tuscaloosa is to win a national championship or compete for one at the very least.

The upcoming 2023 is shaping up to be an interesting one for Nick Saban and the Crimson Tide. Not only is the schedule loaded with challenges, but there are a lot of crucial contributors from 2022 that need to be replaced. At the time of publishing this, two weeks from Week 1, there is still an ongoing three-man race for the starting job.

Recently, Seth Emerson and Kennington Smith III of The Athletic (subscription required) predicted how many wins each SEC team will win in the 2023 season.

For Alabama, the projection is 10, which means two losses for the second year in a row.

“The dynasty could be ending – or we could be forgetting that Alabama’s two losses last year were by five combined points – and it barely lost the national championship game the prior year,” writes Emerson. “There’s still enough talent, and there’s still Nick Saban, to bet the over.”

Smith takes a slightly different approach to the Tide.

“The Crimson Tide’s schedule is loaded: marquee games against Tennessee, Texas and LSU and potential land mines at Kentucky and Tennessee. There are questions at quarterback, but the overall roster talent and the fact that the toughest three games (Tennessee, Texas and LSU) are at home should mean we should take the over, slightly.”

Alabama will be tested early in the season, as Texas will visit Bryant-Denny Stadium for Week 2. Only time will tell how this Crimson Tide team performs; but for now, there are many question marks that warrant a prediction of around 10-2.

Roll Tide Wire will continue to follow Alabama football as the 2023 season approaches.

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USA TODAY projects Lions to win the NFC North for the 1st time

USA TODAY projects the Detroit Lions to win the NFC North for the 1st time in the division’s history

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Count at least one analyst at USA TODAY Sports as drinking the Honolulu Blue Kool-Aid in 2023.

In his annual team-by-team win prediction, Nate Davis jumps on the Detroit bandwagon. Davis bullishly projects an 11-6 finish and an NFC North division title — something the Lions have never done — for the Lions.

But the guess here is that a revamped secondary – part of a defense that ranked last overall in 2022 – an imposing offensive line, first-round RB Jahmyr Gibbs and a boost from second-year WR Jameson Williams (after his six-game gambling suspension ends) will give this club its first division title since 1993.

Moreover, the Lions are the only NFC North team projected here to finish with a winning record. Davis prophesizes the Bears, Packers and Vikings to all finish with matching 7-10 records in 2023.

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ESPN projects Florida to finish 3rd in SEC East ahead of 2023 season

Georgia and Tennessee are expected to finish on top of the SEC East, but Florida gets the third-place nod on ESPN’s 2023 conference projections.

The 2023 college football season is rapidly approaching and ESPN is previewing each conference ahead of fall camps. As most might expect, Georgia is expected to finish on top of the SEC East for a third-straight season, with Tennessee finishing as a competitive second.

There’s a big gap between the top two teams in the division and the rest of the field, though. Florida comes in third with an SP+ ranking of 14.8 (21st overall), but Kentucky is very close behind (14.5, 22nd overall) as the projected fourth-place team.

Florida’s offense is once again projected to be its strength, with a 37.4 offensive SP+ rating that’s good for the 23rd-highest coming into the season. A defensive rating of 22.6 is only the 38th-highest in Division I football, though. Only South Carolina (26.3) and Vanderbilt (32.3) are expected to be worse on defense.

As far as average wins go, ESPN sees Florida winning 6.4 games, meaning another .500 finish to the regular season is likely. Florida’s expected 3.7 conference wins are the same as Kentucky’s, so that could end up being the biggest game of the season for both teams.

ESPN staff writer Bill Connelly also tackles how long it will take Billy Napier to find success at Florida, citing a “miserable” fanbase’s growing lack of patience. A difficult schedule won’t make things easy, and Florida’s strengths might not be enough to overcome it’s deficits.

“While Georgia will be the preseason No. 1 and the Vols and Seminoles will get lots of top-10 votes, Florida will be facing what SP+ sees as the hardest schedule in the country with another transitional roster — a new starting quarterback, at least five other new offensive starters and mega turnover at linebacker and in the secondary,” Connelly wrote.

Connelly does like the tandem of Montrell Johnson Jr. and Trevor Etienne in the backfield for Florida. Ricky Pearsall also earned some love as Connelly’s favorite slot receiver in the division.

The big question mark is at quarterback for the Gators. Billy Napier is still deciding whether he’ll give the ball to Graham Mertz or Jack Miller III to start the season.

“Napier and offensive coordinator Rob Sale have done their best work with dual-threat quarterbacks, and Mertz … is not that. Miller might be.”

It will be tough for Billy Napier to find the kind of success fans want him to in Year 2 of the culture change. Finishing above .500 seems like a tall order, and Connelly says that there are only three “likely” wins on UF’s schedule. Everything else is a toss-up or expected loss.

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Follow us @GatorsWire on Twitter and like our page on Facebook to follow ongoing coverage of Florida Gators news, notes and opinions.

How teams that finished 9-8 in 2021 fared in 2022

The Lions finished 9-8 in 2022. What does history say happens next?

The Detroit Lions rallied furiously from a 1-6 start in 2022 to finish 9-8. Now the world awaits what they can do in the follow-up season.

There isn’t a lot of historical data to pore over to research how teams that finished 9-8 did the following season. The 2022 campaign was just the second with 17 games after decades of NFL teams only playing 16 per season.

Here’s a look at how the teams who went 9-8 in 2021, the first season of 17 games, wound up performing in the 17 games of 2022, as well as how they built to the 9-8 from the 2020 year.

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Sam LaPorta: Projecting the Lions TE rookie stats based on historical production

Sam LaPorta: Projecting the Lions TE rookie stats based on historical production and offensive role

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When the Detroit Lions drafted Iowa tight end Sam LaPorta with the No. 34 overall pick in the 2023 NFL draft, they were counting on finding a long-term fixture at the position. LaPorta will also be relied upon to bolster the receiving options in coordinator Ben Johnson’s offense right away, too.

But how much can the Lions reasonably expect to get out of LaPorta as a rookie receiver?

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To project LaPorta’s production in his rookie season, I took a look back at all the tight ends selected in the first two rounds of the draft dating back to 2016. There have been 15 of them, including Detroit’s selection of T.J. Hockenson at No. 8 overall back in 2019.

Here is what each of those 15 tight ends produced as rookies:

	Drafted	Receptions	Yards	TDs
Tre McBride	55th in 2022	29	265	1
Kyle Pitts	4th in 2021	68	1,026	1
Pat Freiermuth	55th in 2021	60	497	7
Cole Kmet	43rd in 2020	28	243	2
T.J. Hockenson	8th in 2019	32	367	2
Noah Fant	20th in 2019	40	562	3
Hayden Hurst	25th in 2018	13	163	1
Mike Gesicki	42nd in 2018	22	202	0
Dallas Goedert	49th in 2018	33	334	4
O.J. Howard	19th in 2017	26	432	6
Evan Engram	23rd in 2017	64	722	6
David Njoku	29th in 2017	32	386	4
Gerald Everett	44th in 2017	16	244	2
Adam Shaheen	45th in 2017	12	127	3
Hunter Henry	35th in 2016	36	478	8

Projecting LaPorta

The average for the 15 equates to 34 catches for 403 yards and three touchdowns.

In 2022, the Lions tight ends caught 66 total passes for 784 yards and 12 touchdowns. Before he was traded to Minnesota, Hockenson caught 26 passes for 395 yards and three TDs in seven games for Detroit.

Based on the role in the Lions offense, the historical production data and how I saw LaPorta being utilized in the offseason practices and my pre-draft evaluation of his skills, my projection for his rookie stats:

44 receptions, 518 yards, five TDs

Notes

Current Lions QB Jared Goff was the man throwing passes to Gerald Everett with the Rams in 2017, a year where Goff earned his first Pro Bowl berth.

Pitts topping the production list is not a surprise. He was a hybrid WR/TE at Florida and continues to play that role for the Falcons. Pitts is the only rookie TE on this list to make the Pro Bowl in his first season.

Hockenson and Hurst each only played in 12 games as rookies.

NFC North roundtable: Favorite to finish last in division in 2023

The NFC North Wire editors project which team will finish last in the division in 2023

The NFC North has not had a lot of variety at the top in recent years. It’s been the Packers and Vikings who have ruled the root of divisional supremacy. But 2023 sees the Detroit Lions as the favorite to capture the NFC North.

If there’s a change at the top, that means the bottom could get turned over too.

In the latest of a series of posts previewing the division ahead of the 2023 season, Alyssa Barbieri of Bears Wire, Jeff Risdon of Lions Wire, Zach Kruse of Packers Wire and Tyler Forness of Vikings Wire answered the question: Which team is the most likely to finish in last place in the NFC North?

Browns safety Grant Delpit named defensive breakout candidate for 2023 season

#Browns safety Grant Delpit was named to Bucky Brooks’ All-Breakout team ahead of the 2023 NFL season

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As the 2023 NFL season inches closer by the week, experts are releasing their way-too-early predictions for what the coming campaign might bring. NFL.com’s Bucky Brooks published his All-Breakout defensive team ahead of training camp in an article on Friday. Cleveland Browns safety Grant Delpit made the cut for this prestigious prediction after taking a step forward in 2022.

“Delpit flashed Pro Bowl potential in 2022 with 105 tackles, four interceptions and 10 passes defensed. But that could be just the beginning, a foreshadowing of his rise to the ranks of the elite at the position. As a 6-3, 208-pounder comfortable in the deep middle and near the box, Delpit is the kind of versatile, new-age safety NFL teams are looking for.”

Last year Delpit struggled early in Cleveland’s schedule, but as the season played out fans saw why the Browns drafted him in the second round in 2020.

According to PFF, Delpit had a total of 32 stop tackles, allowed just two touchdowns in coverage, and showed progress each week. Now with upgraded talent around him and Jim Schwartz spearheading the defensive playcalling, Delpit is poised to become an integral part of the Browns’ defense in 2023.

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