Throughout the offseason, SB Nation will host NFL fan surveys, sponsored by FanDuel Sportsbook. For Pride of Detroit, we are tasked with fielding questions from Detroit Lions fans, and as we shift into regular-season mode, we have two questions for fans this week:
- Will the Lions beat the Saints in Week 1? (weekly question)
- Are you confident the Lions are headed in the right direction? (recurring poll)
According to FanDuel Sportsbook, the Lions are near touchdown favorites for this Week 1 battle at Ford Field, but after last season ended in disappointment, head coach Dan Campbell insists that the team won’t be taking any team lightly this season.
“This is a hungry opponent,” Campbell said on Monday. “It’s a lot of young, hungry players, talented players. You could see their progression as the season went on last year; they started playing pretty good football—minus Atlanta, in that last game.”
The Saints spent the offseason plugging holes on defense and working on upgrading their offense—I talked about this a bit more in my opening odds article—while the Lions made a conscious choice to get back to basics, while also undergoing a youth movement with the roster and targeting specific areas they wanted to upgrade.
“I thought we had a really good offseason,” Campbell said on Tuesday. “And we identified things that we felt like we needed to upgrade; I thought we did that. And then I think just our focus, getting back to what we do, what we’re about, and really, really competing with each other, testing each other, the chess game between the coordinators, the offense, the defense, then cutting it loose more on special teams. I just thought we identified those issues and went after them, not only personnel, but just schematically and competitively. I think we got back to some of those things that we’re about. I think we had an outstanding training camp, and so that’s always going to give me hope.”
Will it be enough to start the season with a win? We’ll find out on Sunday, but we want to get your prediction, so make sure you vote in THE FEED surveys below, sound off in the comments, and then make sure to check back with Pride of Detroit later in the week for the results.
