The Detroit Lions’ offense has sputtered all season, and one of the biggest culprits has been inconsistent play from their offensive line. It’s why Detroit’s running has sputtered at times, and it’s why Jared Goff is currently on pace for 34 sacks—the most since his first year in Detroit back in 2021.

Some struggles were expected. This offseason, the Lions lost All-Pro center Frank Ragnow to retirement and Pro Bowl guard Kevin Zeitler in free agency. They opted to start rookie Tate Ratledge at right guard, second-year Christian Mahogany at left guard (now replaced by Kayode Awosika due to injury), and veteran Graham Glasgow is back at center, a position he hasn’t regularly started at since 2022.

Against the Philadelphia Eagles, the offensive line continued its struggles. Goff was hurried and inaccurate all night, while the Lions only mustered a measly 3.5 yards per carry on the ground.

Despite the recent troubles, coach Dan Campbell believes it’s going to get better as the Lions attempt to make a playoff push in the final seven weeks of the season.

“I believe in these guys, man. I do.” Campbell said. “I just think the more they play together and they mesh, and we just do things that we do well.”

There have been games in which the Lions’ offensive line has seemingly settled in. They’ve held the opponent sackless in four of 10 games this season, and the run game has topped 150 yards in four contests so far.

Campbell believes there’s more he can do to lean into the unit’s strengths—something he thinks he could’ve done a better job of in Sunday’s loss to the Eagles.

“Every game’s different. There’s a couple of things I wish yesterday maybe I do differently, and just the way that we go about attacking those guys. Just a little bit that I think maybe can help our guys, too. There again, I just think – there’s a lot of things I think about that are always going around in my head, man. A number of different ways, ‘Well, we can do this, we can do this, we can try this.’”

Next up is the New York Giants. While they are just 2-9 on the season, they do boast a defensive line that could challenge the Lions’ front. That includes the likes of Brian Bruns, Kayvon Thibodeaux, Dexter Lawrence, and Abdul Carter.

Still, Campbell remains confident in Detroit’s front.

“I just go back to, man, I just believe in these guys. I think that they’re good enough, they know how to play together, we’ve just got to be a little more consistent in areas.”

A special team has issued its report on a wrongful conviction in Detroit, saying mistakes made early in the investigation led to the robbery conviction that unraveled years later. 

The matter involved Eric Anderson, who spent nine years in prison for an armed robbery that took place in 2010 in Detroit. That conviction was vacated in 2019. The judge’s sentence had called for 30 to 50 years in prison. 

The Wayne County Sentinel Event Review Team presented its findings Monday, upon a review requested by Wayne County Prosecutor Kym Worthy. 

This review is the first of its kind in Michigan, authorities said. It identifies 40 “contributing factors that led to the inaccurate conviction,” and provides over two dozen recommendations to help boost the fairness and accuracy of the criminal justice system in Wayne County. While this idea had been in the works for years, Worthy said it took grant money and the careful selection of an appropriate investigation to use as the case study. She hopes to repeat the process with another case in the future.

“I think when mistakes are made, it’s prudent to determine how and why they were made to ensure they are not made in the future,” Worthy said. “I like that this review is done in a blame-free environment to get to the heart of the problem. I am hopeful that the adoption of these recommendations will help prevent future wrongful convictions and increase public confidence in the criminal justice system.” 

The Quattrone Center for the Fair Administration of Justice at the University of Pennsylvania Carey Law School led the effort. Other agencies involved were Wayne County Prosecutor’s Office, Detroit Police Department, the Third Judicial Court of Michigan, the Michigan State Appellate Defender Office and the Cooley Innocence Project. 

The team concluded that errors happened at multiple steps during the robbery case, from eyewitness identification and investigation to trial and post-conviction. 

“The process is not about blame – it is about building a safer, more transparent, and more reliable justice system,” said John Hollway, Senior Advisor to the Quattrone Center for the Fair Administration of Justice at Penn Carey Law. 

For example, authorities said there was only one eyewitness account. The robbery victim had been injured. There was poor lighting in the area. The assailants were masked. An identification was made based on a photograph that was not taken around the time of the robbery. 

“The review underscores that eyewitness misidentification remains one of the most powerful drivers of wrongful conviction. Strengthening procedures around identifications is essential to ensuring that the system protects the innocent and holds the guilty accountable,” said Valerie Newman, Director of the WCPO’s Conviction Integrity Unit. 

A sworn confession from one of the actual perpetrators sent this case into further review, authorities said. The WCPO Conviction Integrity Unit determined that the other two men committed the robbery and asked that this conviction be vacated. 

The recommendations from this review focus on taking precautions early in an investigation, before errors can build up. This includes evaluation of eyewitness identifications, alibi questioning and case documentation. 

The report also noted that some technology that is commonly used today, including cell phone location tracking and license plate recognition cameras, was not available when the initial crime took place.