Die-hard Detroit Lions fans have been waiting for this day for five years now, but the long wait is over. Penei Sewell, the first draft pick of the Dan Campbell-Brad Holmes era, is officially considered the best offensive lineman in football.
In this year’s NFL Top 100 list for the 2025 season—which is voted on by the players—the Lions’ two-time first-team All-Pro right tackle checks in as the 13th-best player in the NFL, the highest ranking for any offensive lineman. It’s a nine-spot jump for Sewell, who checked in at No. 22 in 2024 and was shockingly unranked during his first three years in the league.
When a player is as dominant as Sewell, coaches and players are not often asked about them because the expectation is that they’ll always be dominant. That’s the standard they’ve established, and they execute day in and day out. However, former Lions offensive coordinator Ben Johnson was recently asked about Sewell’s development from his rookie season and had a powerful message about the best offensive lineman in the game.
“Yeah, I think that first year, what I immediately flash back to was the Rams game, and he had a couple times where he went one-on-one with Aaron Donald, and he did not back down,” Johnson said of Sewell last December. “In fact, they were toeing the line right through the edge of the whistle, going back and forth, and so you saw the demeanor, you saw the attitude, you saw the intensity, everything that you thought you were getting with him coming out of Oregon. And from rookie year until now, all he’s done is polish up his game in terms of technique, in terms of the fundamentals, and honestly, I think it’s the leadership portion that stands out more to me than any. He really is a tone-setter for us on offense. We know what we’re going to get each and every week. He’s going to drive guys off the ball, he’s looking to take souls out there.”
Sewell is the seventh Lions player to make this year’s list. Here’s where everyone else has landed:
- Jared Goff: 15th
- Amon-Ra St. Brown: 20th
- Jahmyr Gibbs: 27th
- Aidan Hutchinson: 55th
- Kerby Joseph: 71st
- Sam LaPorta: 94th
Can Sewell climb even higher in 2026? Well, if you ask David Montgomery, Sewell should already be in the top 5:
