Lions' Offensive Playmakers Ranked No. 2 in NFL

The Detroit Lions enter the 2025 season with one of the best offenses in the entire NFL.

Led by Pro Bowl signal-caller Jared Goff under center, the Lions were the highest-scoring team in the league a season ago (33.2 points per game). And Dan Campbell's squad should rank among the top scoring units in the game once again this upcoming season. 

A large reason why: Detroit is equipped with a plethora of offensive weapons.

For starters, the offense features a No. 1 receiver in Amon-Ra St. Brown, who is coming off back-to-back first-team All-Pro campaigns. St. Brown, a fourth-round draft pick of the Lions in 2021, has recorded at least 106 catches, 1,161 receiving yards and six touchdowns in each of the past three seasons. The USC product also caught a career-best 81.6 percent of his targets in 2024.

St. Brown is not the only reliable pass-catcher at Goff's disposal, either. He also has the luxury of being able to throw to the likes of fellow wideout Jameson Williams, coming off his first 1,000-yard receiving season, and Pro Bowl tight end Sam LaPorta.

Plus, Detroit possesses arguably the league's very best running back tandem with Jahmyr Gibbs and David Montgomery.

To ESPN's Bill Barnwell, these aforementioned Lions weapons make up the second-best group of offensive playmakers in the NFL. And St. Brown factors strongly into the equation for Barnwell.

As the longtime NFL scribe writes, “For a player who was originally a fourth-round pick and then written off as strictly a slot receiver, Amon-Ra St. Brown continues to exceed expectations. He had an 81.6% catch rate last season, the second-best rate for a wideout with 100 targets or more since 1992. His 70.2% success rate on those targets, per Pro Football Reference, was the fifth-best mark for any wideout with those same constraints. Three of the other top four years are from seasons with Drew Brees at quarterback. No disrespect to Jared Goff, but St. Brown continues to do special things in his office over the middle of the field.” 

According to Barnwell, the only group of weapons ahead of Detroit's is that of the reigning Super Bowl champion Philadelphia Eagles.

He believes “the tiniest of margins” separates the two, with Ben Johnson's departure from the Lions' coaching staff playing a significant factor.

Per Barnwell, “Ben Johnson was undoubtedly a huge help to the offense and getting the most out of this talent, but with the former Detroit coordinator now off to the Bears, there probably won't be the same endless array of trick plays and brilliant adjustments that we saw in years past. If the Lions can keep this up with John Morton calling plays, they'll be the clear No. 1 in 2026. As it stands, by the tiniest of margins, the adjustment I'm making for having Johnson over the past few years leaves Detroit behind our new playmaker champs.”

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