I’ve looked hard, but I don't see any way the Detroit Lions don’t win the NFC North title

I’ve looked for holes. I really have. I’ve checked stats and examined metrics, I’ve reviewed coaching changes and I’ve pored over draft hauls and free agents.

After all of that, I’ve reached one conclusion.

I don’t see any way the Detroit Lions won’t win the NFC North this season.

Look, you and I know each other. You’ve been reading what I’ve been writing for a while. Maybe we don’t always agree. But you know I never take it easy on the Lions. I’m a tough critic. So when I tell you there’s very little chance the Chicago Bears, the Green Bay Packers or the Minnesota Vikings can deny the Lions their first division title since 1993, you can take it to the bank. Or as Matthew Stafford once put it to Darrell Bevell and Matt Patricia: Trust me!

When you look at what the rest of the division added, it wasn’t very impressive. No team drafted higher than 10th, no team had more than one first-rounder and no team added a surefire, difference-maker via the draft or free agency.

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The Bears won three games last year. Their defense was awful and the passing ability of quarterback Justin Fields remains a huge question mark. The franchise had a chance to draft Fields’ replacement with the No. 1 overall pick this year, but chose to go ride-or-die with Fields by trading away the chance to pick Bryce Young, C.J. Stroud or Anthony Richardson.

Well, if Fields doesn’t work out, the Bears only have to wait a couple decades before they can trade away their franchise for Mitch Trubisky’s son. Is Sid Luckman’s great-great grandson available?

After the Lions sent Aaron Rodgers out a loser in his final game at Lambeau, the Packers traded Rodgers and his ivermectin horse pills to the New York Jets. Now Green Bay hands over the reins to an almost-entirely unknown commodity in Jordan Love, who hasn’t played much since his junior year at Utah State in 2019.

Let’s not forget how hard it is for a quarterback to stoke team success right away. Rodgers was 25 when he took over for Brett Favre in 2008. The Packers were coming off a division title and an appearance in the NFC title game. Rodgers played well, but Green Bay still won just six games that year. Love is 24 and takes over for an 8-9 team that took a step back defensively but still kept hot-seat coordinator Joe Barry (perhaps better known in Detroit as ex-Lions coach Rod Marinelli's son-in-law).

Ultimately, the Packers’ fortunes will ride with Love this year. And the team is being realistic about their new signal-caller by managing expectations.

“I think the one thing you see in this league, it’s very rarely are guys shot out of a cannon winning-wise,” general manager Brian Gutekunst told the Green Bay Press-Gazette. “There is some great play, there’s instances you see flashes, but I think it takes most of these quarterbacks a little bit of time to learn how to win.

“It’s one thing to play well and make throws and make plays, but it’s another thing to lead your team to wins. I think that takes time. You don’t get a lot of that in this league, but certainly with any new quarterback that’s playing for the first time, you’re going to need some of that.”

He's right. But you can bet your cheese curds no one in Titletown wants to hear that after suffering through a entire one-year drought of not winning the division.

The Packers kept 11 of the 13 players they drafted on their initial 53-man roster, including second-round receiver Jayden Reed from Michigan State. He could complement Christian Watson, who had an impressive rookie season. But even Rodgers took two years to make the playoffs, three years to win the Super Bowl and four years to a division title.

Minnesota should pose the most credible threat to the Lions’ title chances. But the Vikings were the definition of fluky last year, when they won 13 games while somehow managing to post a minus-3 net point differential.

The Vikings validated their flukiness by pinning it on their 31st-ranked defense that allowed Daniel Jones and the New York Giants to beat them, 31-24, at home in a wild-card game. They immediately fired coordinator Ed Donatell and hired former Dolphins coach Brian Flores to run the defense.

The Vikings’ biggest strength is Kirk Cousins, their 35-year-old, established Pro Bowl quarterback in the final year of his contract. Yeah, I know receiver Justin Jefferson was the NFL's Offensive Player of the Year and torched the Lions for 223 yards in December. But it’s Cousins’ steady if unspectacular play that will win games for the Vikings. Sorry (not sorry), fantasy nerds.

Minnesota’s biggest addition could be Flores and his revamped blitz-heavy defense that relies on confusion. But after several training camp practices, Cousins himself laid out a blueprint for opponents to defeat Flores’ defense in an interview with longtime ESPN reporter Kevin Seifert.

“So if I get a free (rusher),” he said, “or we didn't quite get the protection targeted correctly before the snap, that's fine. (Defenders) win that down. I'm throwing it in the dirt. But I'm not going to let you win the game. I'm not going to have a sack-fumble. I'm not going to throw a pick.”

Essentially, Cousins learned how to be patient with Flores’ tactics.

“So there’s a little bit of practice,” he said, “where I have to let Flo win the play or even win the series,. But I can't let him win the game, if you will.”

Of course, anything can happen. If the Lions suffer injuries to key starters, that easily could derail their chances this season to win what should be one of the NFL’s weakest divisions. They’re far from a perfect team and have a lot to prove on defense. They don’t have one All-Pro level star who can take over a game and strikes fear in every opponent’s heart.

What the Lions do have this year, for the first time in a long time, is everyone’s confidence as the team to beat in the NFC North. Even mine.

Contact Carlos Monarrez: cmonarrez@freepress.com. Follow him on Twitter @cmonarrez.

This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Why I can't see a way the Detroit Lions don’t win the NFC North