# Detroit Lions 2026: The Coverage Report — 214 Graded Takes, Second-Worst Accuracy in the League

*Published 2026-09-06 — MissedTakes*

Post-cutdown coverage report No. X of 32. One club at a time, we count what the outlets in our database actually said about a team and grade it against what happened. One caveat up front, and only once: this measures the publications and shows **we track**, not all football media. A team can be a fixture on television and still be light in here.

## The baseline: normal volume, abnormal results

Across all 32 clubs, our database holds 19,341 takes with a subject team attached, 6,785 of them graded. The Detroit Lions account for **543 takes, 214 of them graded**.

That is 20th of 32 in raw take volume — below the league mean of 604 — but the graded count of 214 sits almost exactly on the per-club average of 212, and ranks joint 13th. So Detroit is not an underserved club in our sample. The pundits we track talked about them roughly as much as they talked about anybody.

What they said is the problem. Detroit's graded takes average **35.0 accuracy**, the second-lowest of any team in the database, ahead of only the Baltimore Ravens at 29.9. The average skill delta is +3.45, which means the field, collectively, barely cleared the naive baseline on this team.

![Detroit Lions: the tracked record](/posts/visuals/2fa9c140-01ea-42aa-9538-dc33ddea6a7e.png)

The reason is legible in the [team profile](/nfl/teams/lions). Detroit went 12-5 in 2023 and 15-2 in 2024, and 2025 came back 9-8 with no playoff berth. Punditry priced in the 2024 team and got the 2025 one.

## Where the accuracy went

Split Detroit's graded record by claim type and the damage is concentrated in exactly the categories where a pundit is betting on the club being a contender.

![Lions accuracy by claim type](/posts/visuals/14d4cfb4-dd99-4003-a05d-7d29369353bb.png)

- **Conference Champions**: 20 graded, average accuracy 0.0, skill −25. Nobody who picked Detroit to represent the NFC got anything.
- **Award Picks**: 16 graded, 0.0. A large share of those are 2022 ballots naming Aidan Hutchinson Defensive Rookie of the Year — ten of our tracked voters, all graded against Sauce Gardner.
- **Playoff Picks**: 18 graded, 5.6. **Division Winners**: 19 graded, 15.8.
- **Game Outcome Picks**: 35 graded, 29.5.

Two categories carried the team: **Mock Draft Picks** (57 graded, 64.2 accuracy, +36.5 skill) and **Season Win Totals** (14 graded, 57.1 accuracy, +31.4 skill). Detroit's draft coverage was good; Detroit's season coverage was not.

The single sharpest illustration is the 2025 win-total consensus. Twelve tracked calls, actual result nine wins, field average 10.92.

![2025 Lions win-total calls: where the field landed](/posts/visuals/f6a3e473-6f09-4788-9e4a-8be5df9aac3c.png)

Seven of twelve said eleven. [Brady Quinn](/pundits/brady-quinn) was the only one on the number — *"the Lions missed the playoffs at nine and eight"* — [graded 100 accuracy, +110 skill](/opinions/13927945-37e3-4504-b927-805ff2bde138), against a naive baseline of 11.75. [John Middlekauff](/pundits/john-middlekauff) and [Nick Wright](/pundits/nick-wright) each landed on ten and scored 80. On the other end, [Gregg Rosenthal](/pundits/gregg-rosenthal) [picked Detroit to reach the Super Bowl](/opinions/c078224a-a985-417f-a10e-8c6fc08b1b76) — *"It was me who picked the Lions to the super Bowl, and I'm feeling a little uneasy"* — and [Rich Eisen](/pundits/rich-eisen) had them [winning the NFC](/opinions/644609e3-3a16-4fe3-9942-a43ec7f9e9a8) as late as November 3. Both zeros.

## The cutdown: 15 calls, none graded

Here is the honest version of the news hook. We hold **15 roster-spot calls on the Lions, and not one of them is graded yet.** League-wide the type has 49 graded takes; Detroit's share of that is zero. There are no graded surprises to lead with, so we will not invent any.

What we can report is the pending consensus, which is worth revisiting when the grades land:

- **Giovanni Manu** is the closest thing to a converged call. Three separate writers said his roster spot was gone. Vito Chirco: *"I feel like the injury is ultimately going to cost him his spot on the Lions' season-opening roster."* Christian Booher: *"I think this could be the end of his time as a Lion unless something changes."* Emmett Matasovsky: *"Without injury, it was very likely that this would prove to be Manu's last summer in Motown."*
- **Tom Kennedy** drew repeat backing. [Nathan Jahnke](/pundits/nathan-jahnke) wrote on August 30 that Kennedy *"is the next man up among the outside receivers, and appears to have secured a roster spot"* — his [third such call](/opinions/47566b48-8024-4960-b25c-11c03fe43543) in the window. Booher had him as *"the leader in the clubhouse"* for the fifth receiver job on August 9.
- Jahnke also read preseason snap counts as security for **Greg Dortch** and **Cedrick Wilson Jr.** (*"Both Wilson and Dortch stopped playing at the end of the first quarter, making it seem like their roster spots are secure"*), Chirco projected **Luke Altmyer** to the practice squad, and [Natalie Kerwin](/pundits/natalie-kerwin) floated **Jackson Meeks** for a spot.

Nine of the 15 calls concern receivers. That is the room our tracked sources thought was in play.

## Who has a record on this team

Nine pundits clear five graded Lions takes. These are small samples — five to twenty-six calls — so treat them as records, not rankings.

| Pundit | Graded | Accuracy | Skill |
|---|---|---|---|
| Rich Eisen | 26 | 18.7 | +1.8 |
| Gregg Rosenthal | 17 | 27.3 | −7.0 |
| [Colin Cowherd](/pundits/colin-cowherd) | 11 | 16.1 | +9.1 |
| Nick Wright | 10 | 38.1 | +20.2 |
| [Kyle Crabbs](/pundits/kyle-crabbs) | 9 | 31.1 | +36.9 |
| [Cynthia Frelund](/pundits/cynthia-frelund) | 6 | 29.2 | −39.1 |
| [Rich Hribar](/pundits/rich-hribar) | 6 | 68.0 | −0.9 |
| Mitchell Eisenstein | 5 | 9.7 | +1.3 |
| [Daniel Jeremiah](/pundits/daniel-jeremiah) | 5 | 69.6 | +24.4 |

The two highest accuracies on that list belong to the two men doing the narrowest work: Hribar on player projections (his 2024 [Amon-Ra St. Brown reception line](/opinions/636fa042-c413-4d93-a89f-70931e21bbf0) of 124.2 against an actual 115 graded 85.19, +110 skill) and Jeremiah on mock drafts. The heaviest-volume voices on Detroit are also the ones making season-shape claims, which is where this club burned everybody.

## The draft, which went fine

Detroit picked [Blake Miller, OT, Clemson at No. 17](/nfl/teams/lions) in 2026, then Derrick Moore at 44 and Jimmy Rolder at 118. Rosenthal's final mock had Miller at 17 exactly — *"I have them taking Blake Miller, the tackle out of Clemson"* — [100 accuracy, +42.7 skill](/opinions/e0b75c16-85ff-4257-8b56-d51a668d725c). The tracked consensus at 17 was Georgia tackle Monroe Freeling, named by Jeremiah, [Andrew Erickson](/pundits/andrew-erickson), [Jordan Reid](/pundits/jordan-reid) and others; Freeling went 19, so those all graded 91.7. Nobody mocking Detroit's first-rounder was badly wrong about the position: the club's offensive-tackle takes (31 graded) average 68.9 accuracy, its best-covered position group.

The contrast with the club's defensive-end takes — 17 graded, 10.8 accuracy — is the whole report in miniature. Ask our tracked sources where Detroit drafts and they are useful. Ask them how good Detroit is, and 2025 says: not yet.