The Best Lions Podcasts & YouTube Channels in 2026: A Fan's Guide

There is no single best Lions podcast — there's a best one for what you want right now. This guide groups four of the shows covering Detroit in 2026 by what they actually do: the community institution, the daily podcast habit, the daily video fix, and the live crew. No rankings, no countdown. Find the lane you're in and go.

Lions fandom earned its media ecosystem the hard way — the people below were making shows through seasons when caring about this team was an act of faith — and it shows in the work. What follows isn't every Lions creator; it's four distinct answers to "what should I put on right now," each doing something the others don't, plus one gameday crew worth knowing about at the end.

The community institution: Pride of Detroit

Pride of Detroit is SB Nation's Detroit Lions community, and its audio arm has one of the deepest catalogs in the market — more than 1,000 episodes on the public feed, anchored by the flagship PODcast and a long-running mailbag tradition where the questions come straight from the community. Jeremy Reisman, Erik Schlitt, De'Meko Scott, and Ryan Mathews carry the shows, and the same names fill the site's daily written coverage — during training camp that means practice observations filed every day — so the writing, the podcasts, and the comment section all feed each other. If you want one place where analysis and community are the same thing, this is it.

The YouTube channel rounds out the operation with live podcasts, Madden simulations, and The Rowe Report, by its own description an all-access Lions channel. The mailbag episodes are a great entry point: fan questions, unhurried answers.

Start with: prideofdetroit.com · Free podcast on all major platforms, with video on YouTube.

The daily podcast habit: The Detroit Lions Podcast

The Detroit Lions Podcast has been independent and fan-run since June 2015 — over 1,000 episodes about exactly one team, no corporate desk. Founder Chris, a Detroit native and former radio presenter, and co-host Jeff Risdon, who has covered the NFL since 2004, anchor the Daily DLP, which delivers Lions news and analysis nearly every day of the calendar. After games, the show flips to a live call-in format where fans get on the air starting twenty to thirty minutes after the final whistle — the closest thing Lions fandom has to a postgame radio ritual it actually owns.

Come draft season they work the Senior Bowl as credentialed media, interviewing prospects in person. And one more thing worth loving: the site runs a writers program that has helped aspiring sports journalists build a portfolio and earn college credit covering the team — a fan project that quietly became a launching pad.

Start with: detroitlionspodcast.com · Free nearly-daily episodes in audio and on YouTube.

The daily video fix: Lions Talk by Chat Sports

Lions Talk by Chat Sports is the daily YouTube stop, hosted by Mike "MicroMike" Kimber — Lions news, rumors, free agency, training camp, and draft coverage year-round, often twice a day even in the deep offseason. Kimber's stated approach is factual, statistical analysis with a non-biased view for the OnePride nation, and the channel's stated goal is building the number-one community for Lions fans on YouTube — which is why the comment section is half the show, and why he leans into it.

If you want a Lions video waiting in your feed every single day of the calendar, this is the channel.

Start with: Lions Talk on YouTube · Free daily videos, year-round.

The live crew: Talking Grit

Talking Grit, hosted by Jason Harwood and Jacob Litton on the Bleav network, pitches itself simply: honest opinions, hosts who don't shout over each other, and no ridiculous hot takes — real football talk for real Lions fans. They deliver on it live, streaming shows on YouTube and Twitch every week, through camp season and all. The goal they set when they launched the channel says everything about the vibe: build a community that celebrates Lions victories and offers comfort during losses.

They're also proof of how connected this ecosystem is — Pride of Detroit's Ryan Mathews joined the show this July, and the PODcast has had the Talking Grit crew on to preview OTAs. The people in this guide genuinely listen to each other.

Start with: Talking Grit on YouTube · Live weekly on YouTube and Twitch, with the podcast on all major platforms.

How to build your rotation

If you want a simple week: a daily habit (Daily DLP on the commute, or Lions Talk in the video feed), the PODcast when you want the deep community read, and Talking Grit live when you want to talk it out with people who won't shout at you. Three different needs, three different answers.

And a name worth knowing for when the games return: The Pride Podcast — superfans Pierre, Tyler, and Malcolm, with more than 420 episodes banked — is built around the live gameday moment, running live pregame and postgame shows on YouTube, X, and Instagram during the season, complete with running traditions like the weekly Oopsy Doopsy and Baller of the Week awards. The show follows the season's rhythm — quiet in the deep offseason, alive when the Lions are playing — so bookmark it for September.

One more thing worth doing in the offseason: the schedule itself is a puzzle, and Lions fans know its quirks better than most — this is the team that hosts Thanksgiving every single year. If following the release-week leaks each May makes you want to attempt the puzzle yourself, that's what our mock schedule builder is for — build a season that could actually exist, then see how close you got when the real one drops.

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