NFC North Preview: A Rebound Year for the Lions?
What will year two of the Caleb Williams–Ben Johnson experience look like? Can Kyler Murray elevate the Vikings offense? Can the Lions get (and stay) healthy? Can the Packers defense survive until Micah Parsons returns? Here’s everything you need to know about the NFC North.
Over the next week, The Ringer will be going deep on each division as the start of the 2026 NFL season approaches. So far, we have covered the NFC East and the AFC East. Now we’re on to the NFC North. Has the Lions’ window closed? Are the Bears primed to make the leap to Super Bowl contender? Is the Kyler Murray experiment in Minnesota going to work? And is everyone sleeping on the usually reliable Packers? Let’s talk about it!
Detroit Lions
What’s at Stake for the Lions
Is their championship window still open? Or did they miss their chance during the 2023 and 2024 seasons, when they went 12-5 and 15-2, respectively, in the regular season but didn’t make a Super Bowl? It’s possible that the Lions will settle into a stretch where they’re a decent, competitive team but not an actual title contender. But there are also plenty of reasons to think this team is primed for a bounce-back in 2026.
Reasons for Optimism
There are quite a few! Let’s start out by pointing out that last season—a year in which it felt like nothing went their way—wasn’t really that bad. The Lions finished 9-8, but they were third in DVOA (I know, hang the banner!). According to the advanced stats, only the Seahawks and Rams were better during the regular season. Detroit was 2-5 in games decided by seven points or fewer, and only the Cardinals had worse injury luck, according to FTN’s adjusted games lost metric. Bottom line: By all accounts, this was a team that wasn’t quite as bad as its record indicated.
OK, so why will 2026 be different? First, I still believe that they have a top-five roster. And secondly, I think they have a reliable offense. The transition from the Ben Johnson era was not a smooth one. Dan Campbell hired John Morton to be the offensive coordinator in 2025 and then took over play calling duties in November. While it certainly felt like the Lions had taken a big step back, they still finished sixth in expected points added per drive, and they were better statistically than offenses like the 49ers, Bears, and Jaguars.
In the offseason, Campbell hired Drew Petzing as his offensive coordinator. I’m not going to sit here and tell you that Petzing is Bill Walsh, but I do think he can be an upgrade from last year’s situation. The most important factor here is talent. Quarterback Jared Goff has finished from third to seventh in EPA per pass play for four consecutive seasons. He’s surrounded by a loaded skill group that includes Jahmyr Gibbs, Amon-Ra St. Brown, Jameson Williams, and Sam LaPorta. You want playmakers who will keep opposing defensive coordinators up at night. The Lions have that.
Oh, and one more thing: The Lions have the second-easiest schedule in the NFL. There’s a scenario where they pile up wins even as they’re trying to figure out some of the potential problem areas on the roster.
NFL Season Previews
Reasons for Concern
You may notice that I haven’t mentioned the defense yet. The Lions finished ninth in defensive DVOA last year despite having the most injured unit in the NFL. That’s pretty impressive. The problem? Those injuries are lingering into 2026. Safeties Brian Branch and Kerby Joseph—both of whom are among the team’s best defensive players—are expected to miss time at the start of the season. And the Lions released cornerback Terrion Arnold amid troubling legal issues. The Lions played a lot of man coverage last year, but their personnel wasn’t good enough, and they gave up too many explosive plays. They need to be quicker to adjust in 2026.
The other potential area of concern is the offensive line. Brandon Thorn ranks Detroit’s O-line as a mediocre unit. They’re starting a rookie, Blake Miller, at right tackle, and they’ll be without starting center Cade Mays for a chunk of the season because of a wrist injury. When Goff is kept clean, he can carve up defenses. But when he’s pressured, it can get ugly. If the O-line has issues, this offense could take a step back.
How I See It
The Lions look like a sneaky Super Bowl contender to me. Their winning formula is simple: talented roster plus efficient offense plus easy schedule. It’s possible that their secondary just isn’t good enough and will put a cap on the Lions’ ceiling. But I choose to hold out some hope that they can get healthy by mid-October and that they’ll feel some urgency to be active at the trade deadline (Maxx Crosby, anyone???) if they sense that they have a real chance to compete for a Super Bowl this season.
Detroit is 45-23 over the past four seasons. In the NFC, only the Eagles have posted a better winning percentage in that span. I’ll always take my chances with a team that has a lot of talented, young players and a coach who won’t turtle in big moments.
Projected record: 11-6
Minnesota Vikings
What’s at Stake for the Vikings
Kevin O’Connell’s reputation? Kyler Murray’s career?? Another offseason reset??? It feels like there’s quite a lot at stake for the 2026 Vikings! Just think about the past four years. At quarterback, they went from Kirk Cousins to Sam Darnold to J.J. McCarthy to Murray. They fired general manager Kwesi Adofo-Mensah. And they have failed to win a playoff game in that time. We could be talking about a lot of the main characters here differently depending on what happens over the next five months.
Reasons for Optimism
I have never been the biggest Murray fan, but I think the pendulum has swung too far in the direction of “You can’t win with this dude as your quarterback.” The week-to-week Murray experience feels high-variance. But when we look at where he usually ends up, it’s a relatively narrow range of outcomes.
Murray has finished from 12th to 21st in EPA per pass play every single season he’s been healthy. He’s had months when he’s looked like a top-10 guy, but he has not had full seasons where he’s been a top-10 guy. Most importantly for the Vikings, though, he sets a floor of at least mediocrity (or competency, if we want to be nicer about it). That’s something the Vikings did not have last season. With McCarthy, Carson Wentz, and Max Brosmer, the Vikings finished 28th in passing DVOA. If Murray simply plays to his career average—nothing more, nothing less—it’ll be a huge upgrade on what Minnesota had last season. Given that the offensive line should be solid and the Vikings have a good group of pass catchers—Justin Jefferson, Jordan Addison, Jauan Jennings, T.J. Hockenson—around Murray, producing a respectable offense seems realistic.
On the defensive side of the ball, the case for hope starts and ends with Brian Flores. There aren’t a lot of coordinators whom I give the benefit of the doubt to, but Flores is one of them. The Vikings are coming off of back-to-back top-five defensive performances. Flores’s creativity is unmatched. I just trust that he’ll look at his personnel and eventually figure it out.
Reasons for Concern
There’s a chance that O’Connell has gotten too much credit, and Flores too little. If we’re talking just offensive acumen, look at where the Vikings have ranked over the past four seasons.
O’Connell has coached a few mediocre offenses and one terrible offense. Look at it this way: If your favorite offensive coach—Kyle Shanahan, Sean McVay, Sean Payton, whoever—had the Vikings’ group of talent on offense, would they be able to produce a top-10-to-12 offense? I think the answer is yes. O’Connell has to show this season that he can get the Vikings to that range.
And despite what I said about Flores above, there are concerns with the defense. The talent here is below average. I have questions about their pass rush, their safety group, and their overall depth. It will be on Flores to once again do more with less. He’s shown in the past that he’s capable, but there are limits to what any coach can do if the talent is simply not good enough.
How I See It
The Vikings started McCarthy, Wentz, and Brosmer last year. They ranked 29th in EPA on turnovers. They didn’t have a single offensive line combination play more than 25 percent of the snaps, according to the FTN Football Almanac. And they still went 9-8. The defense could easily take a step back this season, but I think the offense will be competent, which is a huge leap from where it was last season. I’m holding on to my O’Connell stock. I think Minnesota will finish in second place in the NFC North and sneak into the playoffs as a wild-card team.
Projected record: 10-7
Chicago Bears
What’s at Stake for the Bears
There’s a chance that by the end of the season, we’ll look at the Ben Johnson–Caleb Williams duo as the best coach-quarterback combination in the entire NFL. Seriously. That’s a thing that can realistically happen. That’s the ceiling that this team has. But as we see often in the NFL, success and development are not linear. Johnson himself has acknowledged that a lot of things went the Bears’ way last year that might not go their way this season. The wide range of outcomes (from missing the playoffs to winning the Super Bowl) makes Chicago one of the toughest teams to project.
Reasons for Optimism
Johnson is Millennial Sean Payton. It feels like he thinks he’s God’s gift to coaching. It also might be true that he’s kind of God’s gift to coaching. In a league where coaches and general managers often like to preach (whine about?) patience, Johnson went to Chicago and won 11 games in his first season. He was the no. 1 reason for its turnaround. He schemed up a run game out of nowhere and created an environment where Williams could succeed. The Bears offense finished ninth in EPA per drive after finishing 26th the previous season. Going back to his Detroit days, Johnson has now coached a top-10 offense for four straight seasons.
Last year’s Bears passing game was successful because Johnson provided Williams answers and Williams leaned into his one-of-one talent as a playmaker. Only Bo Nix threw into tight windows at a lower rate than Williams, and Williams did a great job of avoiding negative plays. Pro Football Focus measures how often a quarterback’s pressures turn into sacks. Williams had the third-lowest rate among starters.
The Bears have a promising supporting cast around Williams. They are expecting big things from wide receivers Rome Odunze and Luther Burden III, and it’d be no surprise to see tight end Colston Loveland emerge as an All-Pro. But really, the optimism comes down to the coach and the quarterback. We might leave this season assuming that we should just pencil Johnson in for 10-plus wins every year, and we might view Williams as a perennial MVP candidate.
Reasons for Concern
There’s a reason why Johnson called the Bears the no. 1 regression candidate. Chicago had nearly unprecedented turnover luck last season. Its EPA on turnovers was the second highest of any team in the last 10 years! That’s not the type of thing that is sustainable year to year. The turnover luck is also at least part of the reason why the Bears won seven games decided by seven points or fewer—the third most of any team.
Roster-wise, the big concern is that this might end up being a bottom-quartile defense. Last year, Chicago ranked 30th in defensive success rate, and it allowed explosive passes at the highest rate of any defense. When it wasn’t forcing turnovers, this was one of the NFL’s worst units. And it’s hard to make the case that the talent is significantly better this season. Their big free agent signing was safety Coby Bryant, but he’s expected to miss most of the season with a knee injury. On paper, the Bears’ pass rush looks like it will be one of the NFL’s worst. It’s possible that some of the guys who missed time last year will stay healthy and play well, but there are just a lot of question marks with this group.
Offensively, left tackle remains a concern. And while Williams’s talent is undeniable, his game still lacks consistency—specifically when it comes to accuracy. Last season, according to PFF, Williams ranked 34th out of 38 quarterbacks in adjusted completion percentage. Only Marcus Mariota, Cam Ward, Shedeur Sanders, and Dillon Gabriel were worse. We know that Williams can make the high-degree-of-difficulty plays. The next step in his development is to make all the layups.
How I See It
I flip-flopped on the Bears roughly 700 times this summer. I really do think that there’s a world in which Johnson and Williams are crowned the new kings of the NFL. And I certainly don’t want to bet against a coach who pounds six cups of coffee plus a cold brew every day. But ultimately, I just have too many questions about Chicago’s defense—both the pass rush and the secondary. I think the Bears will have a top-10 offense, but I’m not sure they’ll have an elite unit that can make up for the defensive deficiencies. This looks to me like a good team that will indeed regress a bit.
Projected record: 9-8
Green Bay Packers
What’s at Stake for the Packers
It felt like the heat—both locally and nationally—was turned up on Matt LaFleur last season, but the Packers ended up signing him to a contract extension in the offseason. Now the Packers are trying to transition from being a good, competitive team to a Super Bowl contender. When they got to the divisional round in Jordan Love’s first year as a full-time starter in 2023, it felt like they’d be near the top of the NFC every season. But the Packers have failed to win a playoff game in each of the past two seasons. Given the coach-quarterback combo and the fact that Green Bay went all in for Micah Parsons last summer, there should be an expectation that the Packers can compete for a Super Bowl right now.
Reasons for Optimism
LaFleur flat-out has one of the NFL’s most impressive track records as an offensive schemer/play caller. Look at how the Packers have performed in seven seasons under his direction.
His offenses have been top 10 in six of seven seasons, and even at their worst, they were still in the top half of the league. That’s been with different quarterbacks and different offensive personnel. The Packers have just been extremely reliable in the regular season with LaFleur, regardless of variables.
Love has become a polarizing quarterback, and I think I know why. From a statistical perspective, the case is overwhelming that he’s really, really good. Love ranked first in EPA per pass play last season. Want to zoom out for a bigger sample? Sure. Over the past three years (45 starts), he’s second. The problem is: When Love makes a mistake, it’s often of the “What the $%&! happened there? Did his brain just short-circuit?” variety. It’s not the number of mistakes he’s making, because that is relatively low. (Love was tied for the eighth-lowest turnover-worthy play percentage, as tracked by PFF, and he had the fourth-lowest pressure-to-sack rate last season.) It’s the type of mistakes.
If the Packers’ skill group can stay healthy, the sky’s the limit for this offense. It could legitimately be the best group in the NFL. On paper, Christian Watson, Matthew Golden, and Jayden Reed should complement each other well. And before he got injured last year, I thought Tucker Kraft was the best tight end in the NFL.
Bottom line here: LaFleur and Love offer a high floor. And everyone else will determine the ceiling.
Reasons for Concern
Let’s start on defense. At coordinator, the Packers went from Jeff Hafley to Jonathan Gannon. The book on Gannon is straightforward: When his unit has a distinct talent advantage, he can coach a good defense. When he doesn’t have great talent to work with, he gets exposed. Here’s how Gannon’s defenses have performed over the last five seasons (two years as the Eagles’ coordinator and three years as the Cardinals’ head coach).
In Philadelphia, Gannon ran a vanilla scheme that was dominant against bad quarterbacks and got exposed by competent (or better) quarterbacks. As a play calling head coach in Arizona, he got more creative, but look at the results. Nothing really worked (to be fair, the Cardinals had bad injury luck and faced a tough schedule). I just have not seen him be a “do more with less” defensive coach, and that’s what it’ll take to be successful with a Packers defense that is expected to be without Parsons for at least the first four to six weeks of the season. Green Bay has a below-average defensive depth chart with questions both up front and in the secondary.
Offensively, the main concern is the offensive line. It feels like the Packers usually figure it out, but Thorn has them as the 29th-ranked unit in his preseason projections. The issue here is that Love had a little Jared Goff in him last year when it came to performing under pressure. Love ranked first in EPA per pass play when kept clean but was 13th when under pressure. If the offensive line takes a step back, there very well could be a domino effect.
And the final concern here is with the Packers’ run game. Green Bay ran the ball on early downs at the third-highest rate last season. If you’re a Love critic, it’s fair to point out that his own coach doesn’t want to put the ball in his hands more often. And the Packers had an average rushing attack last season, ranking 18th in DVOA. In terms of personnel, running back Josh Jacobs has been charged with two misdemeanor counts of battery and criminal damage to property stemming from an offseason arrest related to domestic abuse. Jacobs has been placed on the commissioner’s exempt list, meaning he’s on paid leave while the legal process plays out and the NFL conducts its investigation.
How I See It
As is the case with all of these NFC North teams, the ceiling here is high. The Packers could produce the NFL’s best offense, and the defense could level up the second that Parsons steps back on the field. He’s that kind of transformational player. If the 2026 season unfolds in that specific (and realistic) way, Green Bay can absolutely contend for a Super Bowl.
I am usually higher on the Packers than consensus because I believe in the LaFleur-Love duo. But I have too many questions this season. I don’t trust Gannon to keep up against good quarterbacks and offensive coordinators. And I have questions about Green Bay’s offensive line and defensive personnel. I don’t see a whole lot separating these four teams, but ultimately, somebody has to finish last in this loaded division, and I’ve got the Packers.
Projected record: 8-9
