Notes: Several Lions land in PFF’s top-10 positional rankings

Jared Goff didn’t earn top 10 honors by PFF, but several other Detroit Lions players did in their positional rankings.

PFF has been slowly dropping their “Top 32” player lists at every individual position, and starting with the offense, the Detroit Lions have been heavily featured in the top 10.

Let’s start with the bad news. As we noted last week, PFF has Jared Goff shockingly low on their quarterback rankings, finishing 16th. That’s behind the likes of Kirk Cousins, Tua Tagovailoa, Jordan Love, and Jalen Hurts. A reminder: Goff finished 10th in PFF grade last year among quarterbacks.

Venturing out from quarterback, several Lions got some well-deserved respect at their position. Amon-Ra St. Brown came in at seven in their wide receiver rankings, and Jahmyr Gibbs was ninth on PFF’s running back rankings after his successful rookie season.

“His 74.5 grade ranked 25th among running backs, as he rushed for 945 yards and 10 touchdowns at an excellent 5.2 yards-per-carry clip,” PFF’s Thomas Valentine wrote. “Only (Derrick) Henry and (Christian) McCaffrey totaled more rushes of 15-plus yards than Gibbs in 2023, and his 3.12 yards after contact per attempt tied for 16th among running backs. With 52 catches under his belt in his first year, too, Gibbs will remain a focal point of the Lions’ offense.”

Where some Lions fans may have more beef is when it comes to the offensive tackle rankings, which dropped on Tuesday. Newly-paid Penei Sewell was not first in their rankings. He wasn’t second either. Sewell landed third at PFF’s rankings, behind 49ers left tackle Trent Williams and Buccaneers’ Tristan Wirfs. Despite earning PFF’s highest grade among all offensive linemen last year, Sewell was placed third in the rankings because of his pass-blocking grade.

“Sewell showed significant improvement during the 2023 season, as his 95.1 run-blocking grade and 92.8 overall grade ranked first at the position. However, because his pass-blocking grade ranked outside the top 10, he finishes third in this ranking,” Zoltan Buday wrote.

I’m assuming their positional rankings will continue throughout the offseason, so don’t be surprised to see Sam LaPorta, Frank Ragnow, Kevin Zeitler, Aidan Hutchinson, DJ Reader, and Alim McNeill get some love soon.

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• uSTADIUM did a 2023 NFL re-draft, and FOUR players the Lions drafted ended up going in the first round—three in the top 12.

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