Penei Sewell fell short of adding another impressive accolade to his resume on Thursday night. The 25-year-old failed to win the inaugural Protector of the Year award, with Chicago Bears guard Joe Thuney taking the honors. <\/p>\n
The NFL created the protector of the year award heading into this past season. It awards the league\u2019s top individual offensive lineman and the winner was decided by a selection committee of NFL legends.<\/p>\n
Sewell was nominated alongside Thuney, Quinn Meinerz (Denver Broncos), Creed Humphrey (Kansas City Chiefs), Aaron Brewer (Miami Dolphins) and Garett Bolles (Denver Broncos).<\/p>\n
It might not have been the best year for Detroit\u2019s offensive line. But Sewell was the furthest thing from the problem. He was Pro Football Focus\u2019 top-graded offensive lineman, winning the analytics site\u2019s version of the protector of the year honor.<\/p>\n
Sewell has missed only two games in five seasons and was an instant impact starter after Brad Holmes and Dan Campbell started their regime by drafting him in 2021.<\/p>\n
The 25-year-old was named a first-team All-Pro for the third straight season and a Pro Bowler for the fourth consecutive year. He allowed only two sacks, 19 pressures and six hits on Jared Goff while seeing more than 600 pass-blocking reps. Sewell\u2019s overall PFF grade was the third-best across the previous three seasons. He registered the top mark among right tackles and the second-best run-blocking mark in those three years. On top of that, he also received the best pass-rushing review of his career, topping the 80.0 mark for the first time.<\/p>\n
Sewell has ranked among the three highest-graded offensive tackles in each of the past three seasons and led the position in overall grade in both 2023 and 2025. It\u2019s been an unbelievable start to his career, as it\u2019s hard to imagine he\u2019s only 25.<\/p>\n
Repairing the offensive line is a key priority for the Lions. Taylor Decker is considering retirement. Dan Skipper has already called it a career. And Graham Glasgow\u2019s tenure with the team is in doubt after another tough season. The Lions need to plan for the future at tackle, need a starting center and could use a little interior depth for competition.<\/p>\n
Still, Sewell is a top building block and cornerstone piece in the NFL, and not just on the offensive line.<\/p>\n
Depending on what happens with Decker and who the Lions add, Sewell could be needed to switch from the right to the left side. He has said he\u2019ll do whatever is asked of him, and he\u2019s been called upon to swap sides in the past. Sewell is the type of talent who could handle the switch with flying colors. And when it comes to the right side, he\u2019s already proven himself as a true generational talent.<\/p>\n
\u201cYeah, I mean, going into this offseason, we just gotta find who we are and get our swagger back, get our confidence back,\u201d Sewell said of the offensive line earlier last month. \u201cIt starts with the guys that are already here.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe gotta each get better and want to get better, just not only for ourselves, but for each other. And I think that starts with the offseason, calling the boys, checking on them more often, creating those relationships.\u201d<\/p>\n
Aidan Hutchinson also fell short in the voting for defensive player of the year. Myles Garrett received every first-place vote after breaking the NFL\u2019s single-season sack record (23). Hutchinson finished fifth among the five finalists, and also fell short in the voting for comeback player of the year. Unless DJ Reader wins the Walter Payton Man of the Year award, the Lions will be shut out at NFL Honors. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Penei Sewell fell short of adding another impressive accolade to his resume on Thursday night. The 25-year-old failed…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":733293,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2071],"tags":[146,113,2506,7,147,6],"class_list":{"0":"post-733292","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-detroit-lions","8":"tag-detroit","9":"tag-detroit-lions","10":"tag-detroitlions","11":"tag-football","12":"tag-lions","13":"tag-nfl"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/116023430062519993","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/733292","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=733292"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/733292\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/733293"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=733292"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=733292"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=733292"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}