At the halfway point of the 2026 NFL regular season, the Lions are sitting at 6-2 and still right in the thick of a crowded NFC North. The offense has a new voice in the headset, too, with Drew Petzing now running the show after Detroit moved on from Morton one season into his tenure. That change came after Week 9’s 24-27 loss to the Minnesota Vikings, the game that cost Morton his play-calling job.
The results under Petzing haven’t been spotless, especially with the offense going through a quieter stretch lately. But the biggest reason his grip on the job looks safe is simple: the playmakers around him are still producing at a high level.
Jared Goff is a good place to start. Through eight games in 2025, he had 1,915 passing yards, 17 touchdowns, three interceptions, a 73.8% completion rate and a 115.2 passer rating.
This year, he’s at 2,134 yards, 15 touchdowns, two interceptions, a 67.8% completion rate and a 106.4 passer rating. The Lions have also given him a better offensive line, though Goff has actually been sacked more in 2026, with 19 compared to 18 at this point last year.
His season has had a few bumps recently. Goff didn’t throw his first interception until his seventh game, then added another in Week 8 against the Miami Dolphins.
The last two weeks haven’t been his sharpest, with just one touchdown pass over that span and his first game without a touchdown since 2024. Even so, he’s guiding Detroit through a four-game winning streak, which matches the team’s longest run from last season, and the overall record is better, too.
The recent dip doesn’t tell the full story. He’s been better than ever under Petzing.
Jahmyr Gibbs has taken the biggest leap of anyone in this offense, and the numbers are loud. In 2025 through eight games, he had 113 carries for 551 rushing yards and six rushing touchdowns, plus 29 catches for 197 yards and one receiving score. In 2026, he’s up to 177 carries, 847 rushing yards, nine rushing touchdowns, 34 receptions, 285 receiving yards and two receiving touchdowns.
He’s leading the league in rushing attempts through nine weeks despite already having a bye, and he also sits atop the league in first downs with 55, touches with 211, yards from scrimmage with 1,132, and combined rushing and receiving touchdowns with 11. His rushing yards per game are at 105.9, which is 37 yards better than where he stood a year ago at this point. The only blemish is ball security: Gibbs has already matched his 2025 fumble total after having none through eight games last season.
That’s a small mark on what has otherwise been a huge year. He seems to break a new record every week, and he’s right in the mix for Offensive Player of the Year.
Amon-Ra St. Brown’s season looks a little different, but not dramatically so.
He’s getting more targets, but he’s catching them at a lower rate, down to 70.9%. Last season, his catch percentage fell hard in the second half, dropping from 79.7% over the first eight games to 59.2% in the final nine.
He still earned Second-Team All-Pro honors, though that late slide likely kept him off the First Team.
This year, St. Brown came out blazing with five touchdown catches in the first three games.
Since then, he hasn’t found the end zone. That’s the longest stretch without a receiving touchdown since the final five games of the 2022 season, and he also went through a seven-game drought earlier that year.
Even without the scores, he’s still affecting games, as his 153-yard performance against the Green Bay Packers showed, along with that 10-yard first down grab on 3rd and 8 against the Vikings, when he lined up about 15 yards behind the line of scrimmage.
Jameson Williams was always going to be one of the biggest tests for Petzing. He was underused under Morton, then played at an All-Pro level once Dan Campbell took over play-calling duties. The question was whether Petzing could keep that momentum going into 2026.
So far, the answer looks encouraging. Williams opened slowly, with 127 yards and no touchdowns through three games, but his production has climbed since then.
His yards per game jumped from 42.33 to 68.2, and he’s scoring at a touchdown-per-game pace. That 68.2 yards per game would be a career high, and he’s three touchdowns shy of a career best there as well.
After showing plenty of promise over the past year, he looks like he’s finally putting it all together under Petzing, with a Pro Bowl nod now looking realistic.
Sam LaPorta’s comparison is a little unusual because of the injury situation in 2025. He played nine games last season before a back injury ended his year, so the numbers are being measured with that extra game included.
Through those games in 2025, he had 49 targets, 40 catches, 489 yards and three receiving touchdowns. In 2026, he’s also at 49 targets, with 35 catches, 399 yards and three touchdowns.
The target total is identical, and the touchdown total is the same, too. Per game, LaPorta is being used a bit more, but his efficiency has dipped slightly, including 1.9 fewer yards per target.
It’s also a contract year, and he hasn’t been quiet about how he feels about the negotiation process. Still, nothing on the field suggests his game has been affected much, or that Detroit is leaning on him any less.
He’s on pace for his second-best season as a pro, and that should set him up for a strong payday this offseason.
Taken together, the early returns on Petzing are positive. The offense is spreading the work around, and when one player cools off, another steps in. The last three games against strong defenses may not have been flashy, but there’s still plenty here to like as the Lions head into the second half.
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