The Lions Should Heed A Warning From Their Rival This Offseason
Credit: Junfu Han via Imagn Images
The Detroit Lions were right there. A 15-2 record, the top seed in the NFC, and the upstart Washington Commanders coming to Ford Field. It was a Saturday night, and the entire city spent the afternoon pregaming to unleash decades of pent-up fury on rookie quarterback Jayden Daniels.
The path to the Super Bowl was there for the taking… until it wasn’t.
Daniels played fantastic and the Commanders pulled off a 45-31 upset that sent the Lions to Cancun. Some fans are still coming to grips with the fact they didn’t see Dan Campbell on their TV during Super Bowl Sunday, and the focus turned to what will be the Lions’ most important offseason in a while.
The championship is right there. The NFC can still be won. Myles Garrett, Maxx Crosby and potentially Micah Parsons could all be on the trade block. One more move can put them over the top, and it’s time to go all in.
It sounds good in theory. But it’s complicated, as the Lions could learn by listening to one of their biggest rivals
Back in 2022, Minnesota Vikings general manager Kwesi Adofo-Mensah sat down with USA Today’s Jori Epstein for an interview. The ensuing article would create a firestorm for his critique of Kirk Cousins, but it also gave a look into his philosophy on roster building.
The Los Angeles Rams had just won the Super Bowl, and the football world was still buzzing about how Les Snead acquired Matthew Stafford. In a copycat league, it felt like more general managers were going to say “F*** them picks,” but Adofo-Mensah had a different approach.
“If it were a seven-game series, yeah, best team wins,” Adofo-Mensah explained. “That’s ultimately why when you’re team building, you never want to go full Rams. Because you need to give yourself three chances at it, four years at it. I know that’s hard for fans to hear.”
Adofo-Mensah’s first three years backed up his words. The Vikings won the NFC North title in 2022, but lost to the New York Giants in the Wild Card Round. The temptation was there to bring the core back, re-signing aging veterans such as Eric Kendricks, Adam Thielen, and Dalvin Cook. But Adofo-Mensah let all three go and attempted to move forward.
Cousins tore his Achilles midway through the 2023 season and the Vikings finished 7-10. Fearing that every quarterback would turn into Josh Dobbs or Nick Mullens, many demanded the return of Cousins – even if it meant dropping the $180 million the Atlanta Falcons paid for his services later that spring.
Adofo-Mensah balked, stayed to his strategy, and constructed a roster that helped Sam Darnold of all people go 14-3 and (kinda) challenge the Lions for the NFC North title. The Lions ultimately took home the division and the Vikings lost to the Rams in the Wild Card Round. But while Los Angeles is debating whether to trade Cooper Kupp and Stafford, the Vikings have $58 million in cap space heading into the offseason.
That doesn’t mean the Vikings completely sat on their hands. Minnesota made a pair of aggressive moves in last year’s draft to acquire J.J. McCarthy and Dallas Turner. McCarthy is set to take over for Darnold as soon as next season, while Turner had a pseudo-redshirt year, learning behind Pro Bowl pass rushers Andrew Van Ginkel and Jonathan Greenard.
Both McCarthy and Turner are under control for multiple years and the Vikings can build around them, ultimately giving them multiple cracks at the Super Bowl.
I know what you’re thinking: The Lions beat the Vikings. Twice. By the time they play again, it may have been three years since the Vikings beat the Lions. This is all understandable. But what if you looked at the team that did win the Super Bowl?
The Philadelphia Eagles have been guided by a similar philosophy. Sure, Howie Roseman went on a free-agent binge that loaded up the roster around Jalen Hurts’s contract to lead them to the Super Bowl in 2022. But when they lost to the Kansas City Chiefs, it wasn’t the end of the world.
Roseman kept acquiring draft picks and used them to acquire controllable talent. A large chunk of his work was done before they went to the Super Bowl, trading Carson Wentz to the Indianapolis Colts. Through subsequent moves, the Eagles traded for DeVonta Smith, Jalen Carter, and Cooper DeJean in the draft, with enough draft capital left over to swing a deal for A.J. Brown.
Acquiring Brown, in most cases, would feel like a “Full Rams” move. But it wasn’t, due to the strength of Roseman’s drafting and roster construction. The finished product showed up to the Super Bowl on Sunday and beat the tar out of Patrick Mahomes, claiming their second championship in the past eight years.
The Eagles haven’t been perfect during that timeframe, but they’ve been in the mix just about every year, turning each season into just one piece of a long game. It’s different from the Rams, who were a dropped interception in the 2021 NFC Championship Game away from coming up empty-handed and were closer to “in the hunt” than “legitimate Super Bowl contender” for most seasons in the Stafford Era, despite making the playoffs in 2024.
The Lions are on that track now, after trading Stafford to the Rams and using that trade to acquire Jared Goff, Ifeatu Melifonwu, Jahmyr Gibbs, Jameson Williams, Josh Paschal, Sam LaPorta and Brodric Martin after a series of trades. It could make it worth going after Garrett in an “all-in” move, but the NFL salary cap requires teams to rebuild and reload eventually. Unless you have Mahomes, this is how you win a championship, and it’s why the Lions should heed the warning of their rival.
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