The Lions Have the Most Dangerous Skill Players in the NFC. They Also Have No One to Protect Them.

Here is the contradiction at the center of Detroit's preseason: Jahmyr Gibbs just became the highest-paid running back in NFL history on a three-year, $67.5 million extension. Jared Goff threw for 4,564 yards and 34 touchdowns last season. Amon-Ra St. Brown caught 117 passes for 1,401 yards and 11 touchdowns. Jameson Williams added over 1,100 receiving yards. This is a genuinely elite offensive core — one of the best collections of skill-position talent in the conference. And right now, the structure built to deploy them is crumbling before a regular-season snap has been played.

Cade Mays is out 8–10 weeks with a wrist injury. That's the starting center, gone for the first two months of the season, and the coverage question being asked openly in Detroit circles — do the Lions need to add a center? — is not rhetorical. The depth chart at the interior offensive line positions lists Larry Borom, Devin Cochran, and Colby Sorsdal as the available options. None of them have recorded meaningful production in the available data. That's not a depth chart. That's a waiting room.

What makes this particularly dangerous is the specific nature of what Detroit lost last year. I wrote yesterday about the 2-5 record in games decided by seven points or fewer — a 29% close-game win rate that directly cost this team a playoff spot. Close games are won and lost at the line of scrimmage in the fourth quarter, when protection breaks down, when the run game stalls on third-and-one, when a half-second of extra pressure forces a checkdown instead of a touchdown. Losing your starting center doesn't just affect Week 1. It affects every tight game Detroit plays while the line is figuring out who belongs where.

And the offensive line isn't the only infrastructure problem. Tyler Conklin was briefly cleared from the PUP list before moving back to Out status. Isiah Pacheco, brought in to complement Gibbs in the backfield, is managing a sprained MCL — though he's expected back for Week 1. The Lions are entering a season where they need their supporting cast to hold together, and the supporting cast keeps announcing new reasons it can't. Teddy Bridgewater retired, Joshua Dobbs is the new backup quarterback, and the secondary remains a genuine concern with Brian Branch still out. The problems are not concentrated in one area. They are distributed across the roster in a way that compounds.

None of this diminishes what Goff, Gibbs, and St. Brown are capable of. But elite skill players don't play in a vacuum. Gibbs' 1,223 rushing yards and 13 touchdowns last year were generated behind a line that had its starter at center. St. Brown's production required clean pockets and designed routes that assume a functioning offensive structure. The Lions are about to ask those same players to produce the same results with a patchwork interior, and my read is that the margin for error — already razor-thin given last year's close-game failures — has narrowed further. Detroit didn't miss the playoffs because of bad players. They missed because of execution at the worst possible moments. Losing the center of your offensive line before the season starts is not a condition that makes execution easier.