Last year’s last-place finish in the NFC North hasn’t done anything to sour Aidan Hutchinson on the Detroit Lions’ chances of winning a Super Bowl sometime in the near future.
“I mean, look, we know we’re in a window,” Hutchinson said after the Lions’ third OTA workout of the spring Friday, May 29. “So every year is kind of the same, the same intensity with the guys we’ve got.”
The Lions return most of the foundational players who helped make them championship contenders in the 2023-24 seasons, when they went an NFL-best 27-7 and won two division titles.
The Lions advanced to the NFC championship game in 2023 but failed to reach the Super Bowl after they blew a 17-point halftime lead in the conference title game against the San Francisco 49ers.
The next year, they won a franchise-record 15 regular season games but lost in the divisional round of the playoffs to the Washington Commanders.
Lions general manager Brad Holmes disputed the notion the Lions’ championship window was closing after that season, then watched the Lions slip to 9-8 last year and fail to make the playoffs.
Holmes said in April he felt an extra sense of urgency to get things right this offseason after last year’s regression.
Asked Friday what he considers the Lions’ window, Hutchinson told the Free Press, “A window of we’ve got a lot of great players, and we can do some [expletive], that’s for sure.”
Hutchinson is one of seven recent draft picks who’ve signed long-term extensions with the Lions in the past two years along with Penei Sewell, Amon-Ra St. Brown, Alim McNeill, Jameson Williams, Kerby Joseph and, most recently, Jack Campbell.
The Lions also signed quarterback Jared Goff to a long-term extension in 2024 and are in the process of trying to extend 2023 draft picks Jahmyr Gibbs, Sam LaPorta and Brian Branch.
All of those players are still in their football-playing prime; Goff, 31, is the only member of that group older than 26. And they’ve combined to make 19 Pro Bowls and earn seven first-team All-Pro selections.
But Hutchinson, McNeill, Joseph, Branch and LaPorta have all had significant injuries as pros, and the Lions soon will face some tough salary cap decisions.
According to Spotrac, the Lions currently have $279.4 million in cap commitments for next season to 42 players under contract. This year, the cap is $301.2 million, after a nearly 8% increase this offseason. If the cap goes up the same amount in 2027, it will be around $325.3 million.
The Lions have the fourth most cap commitments in the NFL for 2028 ($285.9 million to 35 players) and the fifth most in 2029 ($184.9 million to 20 players).
“I don’t know numbers,” Hutchinson said. “All I know is we’ve got good players.”
The Lions, in fact, may have more good players than ever on a roster that got younger and deeper at some key spots this offseason.
Lions coach Dan Campbell touted the depth his team added this offseason in his pre-practice news conference Friday, and while he declined to name any individual players who’ve stood out so far in spring or even say which position groups have impressed him, he said this is the most “top-tier competition” the roster’s had in his six seasons in Detroit.
“This is going to be good across the board,” Campbell said. “So now it’s just, let’s get acclimated. We want to hit the ground running when we get to late July, August. That’s what we want.”
Hutchinson, who finished fourth in the NFL with 14 ½ sacks last season and earned second-team All-Pro honors for the first time in his career, wants that and plenty more, too.
He said he was “really happy” with how he played last season given the scrutiny he was under in his return from a broken leg and after signing a four-year extension that made him the NFL’s second-highest paid defensive end.
He praised his new cohorts on the Lions’ defensive line: edge rushers DJ Wonnum, Payton Turner and Derrick Moore, a second-round pick from Hutchinson’s alma matter, Michigan.
And he acknowledged he has Defensive Player of the Year aspirations this fall, something that if he’s able to achieve could give the Lions quite the view from their window.
“My mentality,” Hutchinson said, “is always that, for sure.”
Dave Birkett covers the Lions for the Detroit Free Press. Contact him at dbirkett@freepress.com. Follow him on Bluesky, X and Instagram at @davebirkett.
This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Lions’ Aidan Hutchinson: ‘We know we’re in a window’ to win Super Bowl
Reporting by Dave Birkett, Detroit Free Press / Detroit Free Press
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