Getting blown out of your own building on Monday Night Football to start the year has a way of lowering expectations, such that not even an improved performance on the road on a short week can quite fix if it still ends in a loss.
And so that's why the Lions remain in one of the final few spots across the various power rankings entering the third week of the NFL season. The Lions checked in in the bottom six in all six major power rankings used for this exercise. Five of the six rankings had them in the bottom four, and their average placement is 29th out of 32 teams.