The Lions made a big jump from out of the playoffs to division champions in 2023, but their run ended in the NFC Championship Game against the 49ers.
Coming into this season, the Lions have the fourth-best odds to win the Super Bowl for the first time in franchise history. Head coach Dan Campbell isn’t setting the stakes for the season as Super Bowl or bust, however. That’s because he is only thinking about the first half of the equation.
“I don’t see bust. I see Super Bowl,” Campbell said. “I don’t know what bust is.”
Campbell also knows that there are other things the Lions need to work on before they can think about a February trip to New Orleans.
“You’ve got to set yourself up no different than last year, certain things you gotta do to really make that valid and to make that a reality,” Campbell said, via Eric Woodyard of ESPN.com. “Ultimately, that’s what we want to do. Now to do that you better win the division. You’ve got to give yourself the best odds you can. You need to win the division; you need best seeding you can possibly do. OK, well how do you do that? You’ve got to start with where we’re at now. You’ve got to go back to work. You’ve got to do all the little things, which to this point, our guys have done.”
The Lions’ late success in 2022 meant they came into 2023 with higher expectations and the bar is even higher coming into this season. Campbell seems comfortable with that change in circumstances and he’ll have a few months to make sure his team is comfortable as well.