ESPN projection confirms inevitable 2025 outcome for Aidan Hutchinson

"If 'if' was a fifth, we'd all be drunk." That famous quote from Michael Jordan has broad application, but for Detroit Lions fans it applies directly and most recently to Aidan Hutchinson's 2024 campaign.

"If" Hutchinson hadn't suffered a broken left fibula and tibia in Week 5 against the Dallas Cowboys, he was "on pace" to comfortably set a new NFL single-season record for sacks. "If" he hadn't been injured and "if" he had maintained close to that early sack pace, winning Defensive Player of the Year would have been a formality.

"If" Hutchinson hadn't been injured, even with all the other injuries to the defense, maybe the Lions would've made a Super Bowl run.

The Lions joined their fans in getting inebriated off all the "ifs" around Hutchinson last year.

By all accounts Hutchinson is fully recovered from that broken leg, and he has been a force during training camp. And while a contract extension to make him one of the highest-paid edge rushers in the league will come, that may add a layer of motivation for him entering the season if it isn't done.

ESPN projection lays out inevitable outcome for Aidan Hutchinson this season

Using a variety of criteria ESPN has projected who the top-50 pass rushers in the NFL will be this season, and ranked them by their projected sack total. Atop the heap is Hutchinson, with a projected sack total of 12.2 (the over/under on ESPN Bet is 14 sacks though).

In the analysis of Hutchinson, writer Seth Walder made a case for that sack projection to end up being too low.

READ MORE: Lions waive promising defensive back with injury settlement

"Hutchinson has an unusual profile for a projection leader. He's coming off a season with only 7.5 sacks, and his forecasted sack total would be a career high. But Hutchinson took a leap into an entirely different tier in 2024. Those 7.5 sacks came in only five games and came with a mind-boggling 35% pass rush win rate (Danielle Hunter led all qualifying players last season with a 26% PRWR)."

"Doing that over five games isn't as impressive as doing it over an entire season, but it gives us a sense of Hutchinson's upside that wasn't quite so clear a year ago (he was 15th with a 9.0 projection in last year's exercise). That Hutchinson is only 25 years old, plays a ton and is on a good team all work in his favor, too. But will new defensive coordinator Kelvin Sheppard blitz as much as Aaron Glenn did? If so, that would further boost Hutchinson's sack forecast (the model assumes an average blitz rate for new coordinators)."

The Lions' official single-season sack record (since sacks became an official NFL stat in 1982) is 15 by newly-minted Ring of Honor inductee Robert Porcher in 1999. A healthy Hutchinson is an automatic threat to that record until he inevitably resets it, with the single-season NFL record for sacks (22.5, shared by Michael Strahan and T.J. Watt) next in his sights.

In any case, Hutchinson may end up leading the league in sacks multiple times before his career is done. This year would be special as the first time though, and ESPN is projecting it to happen.

More Lions news and analysis