The Detroit Lions made some history last season, ending a division-title drought and reaching the NFC Championship.
When it comes to carving out a place among the NFL’s heavyweights, it looks they’ll be sticking around for a while, too.
Pro Football Focus on Monday revealed its top 25 players under 25 years old, and it’s a list teeming with Lions, led by offensive tackle Penei Sewell at No. 1 overall.
Sewell, 23, leads a five-player Lions contingent that includes defensive end Aidan Hutchinson (No. 6), receiver Amon-Ra St. Brown (11), tight end Sam LaPorta (19), and running back Jahmyr Gibbs (21).
Sewell and St. Brown recently signed lucrative extensions, along with quarterback Jared Goff.
The Houston Texans had the second-most representatives in PFF’s rankings, with three.
Sewell boasted a 92.8 overall grade and 95.1 run-blocking grade from Pro Football Focus, which led NFL offensive linemen in 2023, writes Zoltán Buday, a PFF senior analyst.
“Although Sewell has already played three seasons in the NFL, he is still only 23 years old and will not turn 24 until October,” Buday wrote. “His 3,359 regular-season snaps over the past three seasons rank second among all players, and he is on his way to becoming the best offensive lineman in the league.”
Hutchinson, 23, tallied 11.5 sacks in his second season out of Michigan, and “brought his game to a whole new level in 2023,” Buday wrote.
St. Brown, 24, turned in career-best season in Year 3 with the Lions, with 1,515 yards and 10 touchdowns on 119 catches, while LaPorta, writes Buday, “arguably outplayed all rookie tight ends over the past decade” in 2024.
The second-round pick, 23, collected 86 catches for 889 yards and 10 touchdowns.
Gibbs, 22, flirted with 1,000 yards rushing as a rookie, finishing with 945 to go with 316 receiving yards and 11 total touchdowns.
“While he had a limited role initially,” Buday writes, “Gibbs got more and more playing time as the 2023 season wore on and became an electric playmaker for the Lions in the second half of his rookie campaign. Following Week 7 — after his return from injury — he earned a 78.0 PFF overall grade, which ranked 11th among running backs, while his 82.0 rushing grade tied for seventh at the position.”
Sewell finished just ahead of Sauce Gardner, 23, the New York Jets cornerback and former Detroit King standout who Buday writes, “already has a case as the best cornerback in the NFL.”
