Detroit Lions are a hulking Goliath who won't lose another game this season

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DETROIT − I want to take you back to a time before the 7-1 Detroit Lions were the scourge of the NFL. Long before they were a hulking Goliath piling up points and snatching people’s souls in their own stadiums and on their birthdays. (Sorry, Jerry Jones and Matt LaFleur.)

Let's go back to Week 2, when the Lions were having red-zone problems and lost to the Tampa Bay Buccaneers at home, 20-16, to drop to 1-1, after they opened the season by squeaking past the Los Angeles Rams, also at home, in overtime.

We could all read the schedule: Week 3 at Arizona, which had just whipped the Rams, 41-10, and Week 4 at home against Seattle, which hadn’t lost to the Lions in 12 years. A 1-4 start heading into the bye seemed quite possible.

Now that the Lions are at the midpoint of the season, though, something else seems possible.

It seems as though the Lions may not lose again the rest of this season. In fact, I’m not going to pick them to lose another game until, well, they lose another game.

That’s not only because they’re winning. It’s how they’re winning. On the road. In the elements. Against good teams. And, especially, shorthanded.

No Aidan Hutchinson. No Derrick Barnes. No Jameson Williams. And for most of Sunday’s 24-14 win at Green Bay, no Brian Branch.

There’s a philosophical paradox, called the "Ship of Theseus," that applies to the Lions. The paradox questions whether an object remains the same object after having all its parts, one by one, replaced over time.

The Lions have answered that paradox emphatically: They, and all their replacements, have not only kept the ship afloat but have turned their ship into a tank, trampling enemy troops and grinding their bones to dust en route to six straight wins.

Forty-two points against Seattle, 47 against Dallas, 52 against Tennessee. Kano had more empathy while executing the skeleton rip in "Mortal Kombat."

But that’s what you get when you pair the NFL’s top scoring offense with a defense that ranked in the top five in scoring, third-down conversions and red-zone efficiency entering Monday.

Now let me take you back even further, to before the season started: I and three of my Free Press pals made our season predictions. Two of us picked 11 wins. One of us picked 12. And one of us, who I thought had found the moonshine in his grandpappy’s liquor cabinet and fixed himself a Honolulu Blue Kool-Aid double, picked 13 wins.

And now? Thirteen wins? Yeah, that seems low with nine games left in the regular season. Sure, the Buffalo Bills and Minnesota Vikings are still on the schedule, and still tough. But you know who’s tougher? The team that leads the NFL — by a wide margin — in net points and net touchdowns.

So I asked coach Dan Campbell, point blank, Monday if the Lions are the best team in the NFL.

“I mean that’s hard to say,” he said. “Certainly, I feel like we can beat anybody in the league, and I think that’s what it’s about.”

First, it’s not "hard to say." They are. And second, if you think you can beat anybody, you’re the best.

What the Lions have done, and how they’ve done it while getting off to their best start since 1956, has been beyond impressive in exceeding my expectations — and probably those of anyone besides the die-hards who predict 17 wins as soon as the schedule comes out every year.

Surely, Campbell maintains faith in his players and coaches at all times. But his standard must be all but unattainable because, according to him, this lofty start has not exceeded his expectations.

“I don’t feel that way,” he said. “I know this … I think more than anything for me, you just want to know that you’re playing good football. You want to know that as you go, you’re continuing to get better and you want to know, ‘All right, if it all kind of ended now, do you have a legitimate shot at working your way through the playoffs?’ You know what I mean?”

Yes, I do.

And if it ended now, the Lions would have a great chance to get to their first Super Bowl. (I would like their chances even more if they traded for some edge-rushing help, one of their few glaring weaknesses.)

Now that winning has become common — if not expected — Campbell finds himself in a different place. He’s at the top of the mountain, trying to nudge the Kansas City Chiefs from their perch, and can see the devastation below him as the NFL’s ax begins to fall on losing coaches.

Campbell has the luxury of not worrying entirely about winning or exceeding expectations, but rather focusing on the process that put him in such a privileged position.

“Like, you feel good about, ‘We’re going to be able to mix this up and have a chance to win those games,’ ” he said. “And I guess I think more that way than I do necessarily the wins and losses.

“Of course you want to win. I want to win. Division games are important. And I feel good about that, I guess, is the best way to say that.”

A sensible statement. But I’m willing to bet Campbell would feel just as good about a 16-1 finish.

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