The Detroit Lions have done pretty well this offseason, and Brad Holmes’ track record in the draft means additional notable talent stands to be added to last season’s NFC runner-up in late-April. This is no one-off cute story of success that isn’t sustainable for years to come.
As the new kings of the NFC North, the Lions now have a proverbial target on their backs. Some people even think the Green Bay Packers are better than them now, already. The Minnesota Vikings always linger as a potential threat. The Chicago Bears looked poised to seriously rise after adding some veteran pieces, and they have two top-10 picks in the draft (including No. 1 overall of course).
We have already taken a look at one free agent move from each NFC North rival Lions fans could (or even should?) laugh at. Now, we go to the flip side to note a move from each division rival that should terrify Lions’ fans.
1 move from each NFC North rival that should terrify Detroit Lions’ fans
Packers upgrade to Josh Jacobs at running back
Aaron Jones is a fine running back, and no one blames him for not wanting to take a pay cut from the Packers for a second straight year. But he is 29 years old, and coming off a season where he missed six games.
In a surprise pivot (head coach Matt LaFleur has said he was surprised too) for a new lead running back, the Packers signed the 26-year old Jacobs to a four-year, $48 million deal (though it’s not quite that heavy of a commitment). He’s coming off a down 2023 season with the Raiders (806 rushing yards over 13 games), but in 2022 he led the league in rushing (1,626 yards) and yards from scrimmage (2,053) with 12 touchdowns on the ground.
Jacobs needed a change of scenery after two years of contract limbo with the Raiders. The Packers also have a better offense than Las Vegas ever did.
The Lions’ run defense is very good, but the Packers adding Jacobs as their new lead back is not ideal.
Minnesota Vikings let Kirk Cousins go
Kirk Cousins has a shiny bust in the business of football Hall of Fame, with fully guaranteed money that will now cover each year of his career from 2016-2025. His new free agent deal with the Atlanta Falcons may even have thrown a new wrench into the Lions’ contract talks with Jared Goff, as a nice parting gift after leaving the NFC North.
But Cousins’ desire to always get paid top dollar, and never take anything resembling a discount, actively impacted Minnesota’s ability to allocate money elsewhere and compete at the highest level. He took something like Peyton Manning’s “managing the salary cap is not my problem” angle, only without a couple Super Bowl rings and other pelts on the wall to justify it.
The Vikings always occupy the middle ground of never bad enough to get a high draft pick and take a top young quarterback prospect-they bungled a “Suck for (Andrew) Luck” campaign once upon a time-and never good enough to win a Super Bowl. The Cousins era personified that, with a 50-37-1 regular season record in his starts (.568 win percentage), one playoff win and two playoff appearances in six seasons.
The Vikings then signed Sam Darnold to a one-year deal to be a likely bridge to a rookie they draft this year. And Lions fans should not look at the cap space they have in 2025, even without taking into account a big new contract extension that’s coming for wide receiver Justin Jefferson.
The Vikings are finally going to get younger and cheaper under center, as they get of the Cousins’ contract carousel. The impact on their winning games in 2024 is uncertain, but letting Cousins go and the future flexibility his leaving gives them is a scary thought for Lions’ fans.
Bears trade for WR Keenan Allen
The Chargers really didn’t genuinely try to keep Allen as they tried to trim significant cap dollars. When an apparent contract extension offer included natural (and automatic, in a sense) overall pay cuts and he balked at it, they traded him to the Bears for a fourth-round pick.
Allen will turn 32 in late-April, and he has missed at least one game in every season since 2020. But he is coming off a great 2023 campaign (108 receptions for 1,243 yards over 13 games), with the highest yards per game mark of his 11-year career (95.6).
Albeit with a cornerback room that wasn’t nearly as good as the one they’ve now bolstered in free agency, the Lions got a close-up look at how good Allen was last season-too close, really. In Week 10, he had 11 catches (on 14 targets) for 175 yards and two touchdowns against them. They obviously had no answer for him, due to personnel or scheme issues (probably some of both), and he often got open with little or no resistance.
Now the Lions will see Allen twice next season, as he becomes a reliable veteran target for the presumed quarterback the Bears will draft highly (Caleb Williams?). And it’s not like they can double-cover him constantly, with D.J. Moore opposite Allen and some other good pieces in the Chicago offense.
Things should go far better against Allen in 2024, but the images of him running roughshod through the secondary as a Charger last season are probably still burned into the retinas of Lions’ fans.
