DFN Mailbag: Lessons from the Super Bowl, how Montgomery's comments alter thoughts on future in Detroit and more

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After penning up an exhaustive roadmap for the Detroit Lions’ offseason, I opened up the mailbag for questions. As usual, you delivered a hearty batch, so this is the first wave, with another round coming Friday morning.

Q: What lesson or lessons do you think the Lions could learn from the Super Bowl-winning Seattle Seahawks? — Jamelle Cooper

Justin: It’s not some grand revelation to suggest Detroit needs to make defensive improvements before we can consider them a legitimate championship contender.

Seattle played smothering defense, generating consistent pressure, stopping the run and forcing turnovers. It marked the seventh time in the past eight Super Bowls that the winner has held the opposition to 22 or fewer points.

Frankly, we can extend the emphasis on defense to New England. They’re not hanging around without cornerback Christian Gonzalez playing sticky coverage, or a unit that finished with seven tackles for a loss and pressures on 18 of Sam Darnold’s 22 dropbacks, which included six QB hits.

Obviously, the offensive trench play also showed up. Seattle blitzed, but not aggressively so, sending an extra rusher just 11 of Drake Maye’s 53 dropbacks. The Patriots struggled handling some of those concepts, but 19 of 23 pressures were generated from a four-man front.

Seattle has a good defensive front, not an elite one. They’re regular season sack and pressure numbers were similar to Detroit’s, which, for me, confirms New England’s protection was subpar, with rookie left tackle Will Campbell and center Garrett Bradbury combining to allow 14 pressures.

Interestingly, those could be two positions the Lions have to address this offseason, pending Taylor Decker’s retirement decision.

Q: Do you feel like there should be a change of defensive philosophy away from so much base and man coverage? Is that even feasible with the players they have? — @DavidMohr818884

Justin: I don’t think a fix is as simple as overhauling philosophy.

However, generally speaking, when you allow the points and number of explosive plays the Lions did in 2025, everything goes under the microscope. The fact that they played more base defense than any team in the league does merit evaluation. There’s nothing wrong with swimming against the current, but that also needs to come with results.

Specifically, regarding this past season, I feel the Lions played to their personnel and injury situations. Jack Campbell, Alex Anzalone and Derrick Barnes were healthy all year. Meanwhile, Terrion Arnold and DJ Reed each missed significant stretches, forcing slot corner Amik Robertson to the outside. I don’t fault the Lions for thinking their base package was a better option than leaning more on a third-string nickel (given Ennis Rakestraw was expected to be the backup).

In terms of playing man-to-man, the Lions probably don't need to go away from the preference. Plenty of good defenses play a similar rate of man coverage, including New England, Denver and Cleveland. Also, to clarify for those who might not know, even the teams that play the most man-to-man are in some kind of zone look more than 50% of coverage snaps.

Q: Do David Montgomery’s comments change your thoughts about the odds of him being on the roster next year? — Tony Hughey

Q: I feel starting Montgomery, playing smashmouth football, then changing it up with Jahmyr, caught opponents off guard. Trading DMo seems like a huge mistake. Thoughts? — @jmwhitejmwhite

Justin: Montgomery’s comments during a radio interview at the Super Bowl were encouraging. New coordinator Drew Petzing was quick to reach out and make the veteran running back feel wanted. Now, it will be up to the incoming coach to scout his personnel and put together an actionable plan to restore balance to Detroit’s backfield.

Amusingly, if you polled Lions fans after the 2024 season, they would have welcomed Detroit’s rotational splits this past year. Normally, I would contend a vocal group of fantasy football or gambling analysts were driving that conversation, but Gibbs is the far more dynamic talent, more than capable of running between the tackles and shouldering a larger workload than he did the previous two years.

However, there was unintended consequences with flipping the starting and relief roles. Because game situations often dictated more Gibbs, specifically end of the half and when trailing in the fourth quarter, the usage percentages got lopsided.

I don’t know if we can suggest the previous rotation caught opponents off guard, but it definitely helped maintain better balance. Can the Lions simply go back to the way things were? Is the run blocking even good enough to recapture anything close to the past results? These are the questions the Lions must answer this offseason when weighing what to do with Montgomery.

Q: Has Mike Kafka been giving a specific title yet? And is Scottie Montgomery still with the team — David Wojcik

Justin: The Lions have not yet announced their coaching staff for the upcoming season. National reports suggest Kafka is potentially in the mix for an OC job elsewhere, which would explain why the Lions haven’t formalized the hire.

The team shared its full staff on Feb. 18 in 2025. I would anticipate a similar time frame this year. That would include some of the more minor moves that have been reported, including shifting assistant offensive line coach Steve Oliver to tight ends, the departure of Seth Ryan to the Jets, and former offensive tackle Dan Skipper joining the staff.

Regarding Montgomery, I’ve asked, since readers have brought it up a few times, but heard nothing that would indicate a departure.

Q: What’s the most realistic exit path for the Kerby Joseph contract? — @the_goffense

Justin: Before answering, let me state that I’m not giving up on Joseph yet. There are a few too many unknown variables with his knee for me to definitively call it career-altering or career-shortening.

That said, if last year’s woes linger through next season, the Lions will unfortunately have to weigh the former All-Pro’s future with the franchise. And the best time to do that will be ahead of the 2027 season.

I’ve written on the topic previously, but Joseph’s contract is structured with option bonuses each of the next four years. This season, the $9.6 million bonus is guaranteed. It would cost the Lions more against the cap to cut him than keep him, by a significant margin. We're talking $15 million.

The $16.6 million bonus in 2027 isn’t guaranteed. And while his cap hit would only be $9.2 million that season if the bonus is exercised, it significantly increases the cap penalty if the sides were to part in 2028.

Q: Thoughts on Giovanni Manu’s development? Can he fill Dan Skipper’s role? — Conner VanDevelde

Justin: I don’t have a lot new to add about Manu since offering up regular updates during training camp, where I thought he showed vast improvement, but still lacked the consistency required to be a starter, or even a top backup.

I never would have anticipated him starting a game last season, and, all things considered, he held his own against the Bengals, with the Lions providing him help much of the day.

After that start, Manu required knee surgery and was shut down until the final three weeks of the season, where he got some valuable practice reps down the stretch. It’s worth reminding everyone that media doesn’t get to watch any of the meaningful portions of practice once the regular season starts, so I can't tell you how Manu performed during those three week weeks.

Talking to him as the season was coming to a close, he was ready to attack the offseason, centering around continued work with LeCharles Bentley. Manu wants to win the left tackle job if Decker retires, with win being the key word. General manager Brad Holmes said it would be irresponsible to bank on Manu for that spot, implying the team will be on the hunt for competition, regardless of whether Decker comes back.

Q: If you’re the Lions, would you focus on the o-line and make the offense elite again or do you focus on making defense above average? — @Rob000000023

Justin: I don’t believe this should be an either-or conversation. You don’t have the luxury of ignoring a roster hole in the NFL, and Holmes will have plans A, B and C to address each of the team’s issues.

Obviously, there’s a budget. The Lions can't afford to sign a top center, left tackle, defense end and safety. Arguably, you can’t afford a top option at any of those positions.

The Lions will use free agency, and potentially the trade market, to fill some of their most-pressing needs. That will give them flexibility to draft the best talent available in the draft. You’d rather not get to that stage of the offseason feeling a need to reach for a position over the best talent. That’s how you quickly water down the overall quality of the roster.

Q: Hypothetical, if Matthew Stafford decided to stay with Campbell and this coaching staff, do you think Lions would’ve won a Super Bowl and be in a much better spot now? — Mickey Moore

Justin: Probably not. That trade netted the Lions two first-round draft picks that turned into Jameson Williams, Gibbs and Sam LaPorta, thanks to a trade down.

The Stafford trade allowed the Lions to embrace a full rebuild. Had they kept him, they likely fall into the trap of retooling and trying to maximize the window of an aging quarterback with an injured back.

It’s the kind of approach that could have led to the re-signing of Kenny Golladay vs. the drafting of Amon-Ra St. Brown. And even if they still added him in that draft, he might not have received the early opportunities he did with a non-rebuilding team.

Q: Can the Lions win a Super Bowl with a single player taking up 20% or more of the cap? — @DUSA12345Z

Justin: They won’t have to worry about that. Goff's cap hit will almost certainly be restructured to well under $60 million. I would expect the Chiefs, Ravens and Cowboys to do the same with their quarterbacks, who all have scheduled cap hits larger than Goff’s $69.6 million.

Q: Who will be the starting C week 1? — @AndyErsk

Justin: There’s no way to reasonably answer the question in February, but my gut tells me that player isn’t currently on the roster. I will continue to contend that I don’t feel Tate Ratledge’s talents are best suited in that role. Leave him at right guard and let him grow into a Pro Bowl-caliber performer.

The Lions could fill the center void in free agency, the draft or even via a trade. I plan to explore all of those options a little down the road.

Q: I saw you cited SumerSports a few times, have you used their new SumerBrain AI thing that looks up stats? Do you use AI for anything in your process? — @lancex51.bsky.social

Justin: Yes, I did reference Sumer Sports in my recent coverage of Petzing's hire. And I did tinker with the site’s SumerBrain, but with all things AI, there’s a trust-but-verify process where I manually tabulate stats in a spreadsheet to confirm the accuracy and consistency of the data.

For example, earlier this year, I asked an AI platform to tell me the age for every current coordinator. Several were wrong. A few weeks later, I tried to get AI to help me collect injury data for the 2025 season. It did a terrible job no matter how I adjusted the query, so I abandoned it.

Right now, my skepticism of AI’s quality remains high. I haven’t, but I would comfortably use it to sort a hand-collected set of data. I have not and will not ever use it to assist in the writing of a story.