The NFL's worst division (well, one of the worst) in 2022 had less coaching turnover than you may have expected. Vikings DC Ed Donatell was the only coordinator to receive his walking papers and no head coaches were hired from the division. Let's go over the teams and what we can expect in 2023. 

Detroit Lions

Both Lions' coordinators, Ben Johnson and Aaron Glenn, had head coaching interviews this off-season and chose to stay with Detroit. Head coach Dan Campbell avoided the hot seat by finishing strong after a 2-6 start. 

Campbell is starting to approach overrated territory as a head coach. It's true that he keeps the Lions playing hard and that the roster is somewhat dearth of talent, but his 17-28-1 career record isn't exactly impressive. Sure, we need to see what he can do with talent, but we also shouldn't just assume that he's going to be great if the Lions can amass some guys on defense. 

Speaking of defense, defensive coordinator Aaron Glenn's stock was in a steady decline from his days in New Orleans through the team's 2-6 start. Glenn stuck with the blitz and man coverage heavy scheme that the Saints favor for a long time despite lackluster results. A positive note for Lions fans is that Glenn totally revamped the defense mid way through the season. Cutting down no the blitzing and man coverage and the defense improved as a result. On the other hand, this improvement pushed the Lions up to 28th in defensive DVOA, ahead of defensive stalwarts like the Falcons and Bears and behind the Vikings. Of course, Glenn has the same excuse as Campbell, that there's just no talent on the Lions' defense. Now is the time for the personnel department to take away that excuse. 

On offense, the Lions beat all expectations. In his first full season, Ben Johnson led the team to a top 5 offensive DVOA despite having Jared Goff at QB. Johnson got a litany of head coach interviews but chose to remain with the Lions where he has a good thing going. Expect Johnson to have a lot of say in what the franchise does at the QB position. Do they stick with Goff and have their goal just be a playoff birth? Do they risk it all for a veteran QB? Do they trade up for a rookie? It's unlikely that the team can be much more succesful than it was on offense with Goff at Qb, and you can pencil in some regression now. Johnson's legacy with the team will likely depend on how he can adapt to the next QB.

Chicago Bears

The Bears went all in on tanking this season trading Khalil Mack, Robert Quinn, and Roquan Smith who many referred to as "their only good players". Thanks to that fact you really can't judge much based on last season. Let's do it anyway. 

The defense was run by first year head coach Matt Eberflus. Eberflus is from the Tampa-2 tree and has evolved a little to include more Cover-3 over the years. That scheme worked great 20 years ago on teams with hall of fame defensive line talent. The Bears wouldn't have the best D-Line in the SEC. Like the Lions, the Bears need to spend a ton of capital beefing up the roster this offseason, unlike the Lions, both sides of the ball need more talent. Eberflus was hot and cold in Indianapolis, he had some good defenses that got beaten up by good QBs and some great defenses that were more consistent. Right now his defenses just gets beaten up. 

On offense, former Packers QB and WR coach Luke Getsy did about as well as could be expected in his first year. The WR corps and O-Line that the Bears attempted to use were possibly both the worst in the league. Despite that, the Bears managed the 25th ranked offense with the 12th best rushing attack. The next step for Getsy is to get Fields to play a little more QB and a little less RB. He has his work cut out for him and some think the team may punt on Fields and draft a QB at #1. 

Minnesota Vikings

The Vikings lucked into being the division's rep in the super bowl despite having the 27th best DVOA overall, 20th best offensive, 27th best defensive, and 30th best special teams. The Packers finished the season ranked significantly higher in each of those categories. Ugh.

The offense is run by former Tom Brady back-up and Sean McVay disciple head coach Kevin O'Connell. Last season the O-line was pretty good, Kirk Cousins was above average, Dalvin Cook was a star, and Justin Jefferson was the best receiver in football, but the offense was still just 20th. The Packers were 11th in offensive DVOA, despite having a likely high QB, no receivers, a mostly injured O-line, and a star RB. O'Connell needs to evolve his offense next year to stay ahead of the league. He isn't going to luck into endless one-score wins every season. The offense needs to adapt to defenses that are doing everything they can to stop Justin Jefferson. 

The defense stunk. It was a Fangio defense minus the discipline and creativity. They ignored the run to play deep zone coverage and stop the pass and then didn't bother to stop the pass. Probably sounds familiar to many readers on this site. Unlike our team, O'Connell gave up after one year and replaced Donatell with Brian Flores who runs a scheme that is about as different from the Fangio scheme as it could possible be. Flores grew up in Bill Belichik's Cover-1 man scheme and added his own flavor of cover-0 blitzing when he was in Miami. The defense puts a ton of pressure on corners who rarely have any safety help. It worked well with corners like Darrelle Revis, Xavien Howard, Stephon Gilmore, and Byron Jones. The Vikings best corner is 52-year-old Patrick Peterson. Lol.