Lions' Aidan Hutchinson discusses team's mindset amid 5-1 start

The 5-1 Detroit Lions have thus far met or even exceeded expectations that hovered over the franchise this past summer, but star pass-rusher Aidan Hutchinson made it known nobody within the organization is prematurely spiking any footballs. 

"It's exciting, but I'm looking at it from a marathon perspective," Hutchinson explained during a recent chat with Eric Woodyard of ESPN. "It's exciting, but we're gonna keep moving forward and just keep taking it one week at a time."

Detroit entered the season as the betting favorite to claim the NFC North title and then beat the defending Super Bowl champion Kansas City Chiefs 21-20 at GEHA Field at Arrowhead Stadium on the campaign's opening night. Following a Week 2 overtime loss to the Seattle Seahawks, the Lions notched four straight double-digit victories capped off by last Sunday's impressive 20-6 win at the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. 

According to ESPN stats, the Lions' offense heads into the weekend ranked third in the NFL with 383.7 yards per game and fourth with 28.0 points per contest. Meanwhile, Detroit's defense is ranked ninth (tied with the Houston Texans) with an average of 18.8 points surrendered per game. 

"It's exciting," Hutchinson acknowledged. "Things are really buzzing around here. I feel like we've really turned this thing around and we're not looking back."

Jared Ramsey mentioned for the Detroit Free Press last Sunday that the Lions went 13-3 over their last 16 regular-season games dating back to 2022 ahead of this Sunday's matchup at the 4-2 Baltimore Ravens. As of early Friday afternoon, OddsChecker listed the Lions as three-point underdogs against Baltimore, but that outlet also had Detroit as a massive favorite at -500 odds to win the NFC North title. 

At that same time, OddsChecker listed Detroit quarterback Jared Goff seventh among the betting favorites at +2000 odds to earn regular-season Most Valuable Player honors.