{"id":162801,"date":"2025-06-27T14:37:11","date_gmt":"2025-06-27T14:37:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/162801\/"},"modified":"2025-06-27T14:37:11","modified_gmt":"2025-06-27T14:37:11","slug":"aidan-hutchinson-propels-the-lions-lofty-defensive-line-ranking-from-pff-ahead-of-2025","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/162801\/","title":{"rendered":"Aidan Hutchinson propels the Lions’ lofty defensive line ranking from PFF ahead of 2025"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Detroit Lions<\/a> are not known at this point for their stellar defensive line play, but Pro Football Focus still holds the unit in high regard.<\/p>\n

PFF released its 2025 NFL Defensive Line Rankings<\/a> on Wednesday, putting the Pittsburgh Steelers<\/a> at the top spot with T.J. Watt and Cameron Heyward leading the way. The defending Super Bowl champion Philadelphia Eagles<\/a> came in at No. 2 despite the departures of Josh Sweat and Milton Williams.<\/p>\n

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The Lions, despite a 2024 season marred by injuries and a lack of pass rush impact, are ranked at No. 6 by PFF entering 2025. The experts putting together this list even acknowledged they could’ve landed even higher than that.<\/p>\n

“The Detroit Lions’ defensive line may deserve a higher ranking based on on-paper talent, but there are quite a few question marks surrounding the health of its top players,” wrote PFF NFL contributor Zolt\u00e1n Buday.<\/p>\n

PFF pointed out the Defensive Player of the Year campaign Aidan Hutchinson led at the beginning of 2024, leading all edge defenders with a 94.9 overall grade. Hutchinson has been fully cleared for all activities<\/a> ahead of the start of training camp.<\/p>\n

The pending return of Alim McNeill also had an impact on this ranking. McNeill tore his ACL late last season but ranked ninth among interior defenders in his PFF overall grade (79.6) before going down. His return will have a significant effect on the performance of the defense as a whole this season, but it may be a while<\/a> before the Lions see him on the field.<\/p>\n

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PFF ranked the Lions a spot behind the Buffalo Bills<\/a> and a spot ahead of the Cleveland Browns<\/a>. Remaining NFC North teams fell far outside the top 10 with the Minnesota Vikings<\/a> at No. 16, Chicago Bears<\/a> at No. 18, and Green Bay Packers<\/a> at No. 24.<\/p>\n

This article originally appeared on Lions Wire: Lions earn lofty preseason 2025 defensive line ranking from PFF<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Detroit Lions are not known at this point for their stellar defensive line play, but Pro Football…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":162802,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2071],"tags":[1817,1518,53,4034,391,54,1156,146,113,2506,7,345,7522,147,7891,259,6,109,57,410,5226,4378],"class_list":{"0":"post-162801","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-detroit-lions","8":"tag-aidan-hutchinson","9":"tag-alim-mcneill","10":"tag-buffalo-bills","11":"tag-cameron-heyward","12":"tag-chicago-bears","13":"tag-cleveland-browns","14":"tag-defensive-line","15":"tag-detroit","16":"tag-detroit-lions","17":"tag-detroitlions","18":"tag-football","19":"tag-green-bay-packers","20":"tag-josh-sweat","21":"tag-lions","22":"tag-milton-williams","23":"tag-minnesota-vikings","24":"tag-nfl","25":"tag-philadelphia-eagles","26":"tag-pittsburgh-steelers","27":"tag-pro-football-focus","28":"tag-t-j-watt","29":"tag-the-lions"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/114755839173713421","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/162801","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=162801"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/162801\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/162802"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=162801"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=162801"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=162801"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}