The 2025 NFL season will mark year No. 5 for head coach Dan Campbell, GM Brad Holmes and the Detroit Lions. Now gunning for a third straight NFC North title and with a loaded roster that (when healthy) is as good as any in the league, the Lions have come a very long way in those five years.

Campbell & Co. inherited a 5-11 club that was a motley mix of aging vets, youngsters with low ceilings, and spent roster filler that wasn’t without ability but was very much without any viable long-term hope.

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A look back at the Lions starting lineup in Week 17 of the 2020 season, a 37-35 home loss to the Minnesota Vikings under interim head coach Darrell Bevell, shows just how much has changed in four full seasons. Only one player who started that game for Detroit and one specialist are still with the Lions.

(Appropriate background music: “Let’s see how far we’ve come” by Matchbox Twenty)

Offense

QB – Matthew Stafford

RB – D’Andre Swift

WR – Mohamed Sanu

WR – Marvin Jones

WR – Jamal Agnew

TE – T.J. Hockenson

LT – Taylor Decker

LG – Jonah Jackson

C – Frank Ragnow

RG – Oday Aboushi

RT – Halapoulivaati Vaitai

Only Decker remains in Detroit, of course. Some of the key players here are still around the league, notably Stafford with the Rams, Swift and Jackson in Chicago, and Hockenson in Minnesota. The offense finished 20th in scoring and yards per game in 2020.

Defense

DE – Nick Williams

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DT – John Penisini

DT – Danny Shelton

EDGE – Romeo Okwara

LB – Christian Jones

LB – Jahlani Tavai

LB – Reggie Ragland

CB – Amani Oruwariye

CB – Darryl Roberts

S – Tracy Walker

S – Duron Harmon

This was the worst defense in the NFL in 2020 in both points allowed and yardage. Of those starting 11, only two have made an appearance in a regular season game since 2023: Oruwariye and Tavai. Ironically, Tavai has become a very solid starting LB for New England after being a misused misfit in his Lions tenure. Walker is the only other player from that starting defense who is still in the NFL, and he’s an unsigned free agent.

Specialists

Kicker – Matt Prater

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Punter – Jack Fox

Long snapper – Don Muhlbach

Mulhbach is now coaching in Detroit, an assistant under special teams coordinator Dave Fipp. Fox remains the punter and has emerged as one of the NFL’s better performers at his position. Prater, now 40, is unsigned but rebounded from a poor three-year stretch (2020 was the sandwich season) to keep on kicking.

Others who played at least 25 percent of snaps for Detroit

WR – Quintez Cephus

TE – Jesse James

OT – Matt Nelson

WR – Danny Amendola

OL – Evan Brown

RB – Adrian Peterson

DE – Austin Bryant

DE – Everson Griffen

DT – Kevin Strong

LB – Jarrad Davis

CB – Justin Coleman

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DB – Will Harris

EDGE – Julian Okwara (technically 24 percent at 19 out of 80)

Of all those players, only Okwara (Cleveland), Brown (Arizona) and Harris (Washington) are currently on an NFL roster.

Some of the names here are of the “oh yeah, that guy” variety. The Lions had several faded former stars on that 2020 team; Peterson and Griffen were washed out of the NFL by the end of 2021, as was Amendola.

It’s important to remember just how far this Lions roster has come in five years. It’s equally as important to see how deftly the Holmes/Campbell regime has avoided repeating some of the team-building mistakes that ultimately led to thier arrival in Detroit.

This article originally appeared on Lions Wire: Lions starting lineup in 2020 nearly all gone from the NFL in 2025