After an intense Monday practice, the Detroit Lions took some intensity off of Wednesday’s training camp session, working only in shells during the two-hour field work.
The main takeaway of the day was, again, a strong day from the defensive unit. Let’s get into that and a lot more in our Detroit Lions training camp Day 11 observations.
I don’t know if there’s been a single day of training camp when the offense has been significantly better than the defense. They’ve had some stalemates, but any lopsided day of practice have certainly favored the defense, and that was the case again on Wednesday.
During red zone work, the Lions offense did eventually score a touchdown—a Kalif Raymond catch in the back of the endzone—but it required a continuation of a drive that was essentially already ended by a fourth down stop (and possible bobbling interception from D.J. Reed—it was unclear if he was still inbounds).
Then, when it came to a situations drill, it was even sloppier from the offense. Holding the ball at their own 31-yard line with 3:41 left, down 14-24 with three timeouts left, the offense essentially went four-and-out. After a drop from Amon-Ra St. Brown and a couple of short passes, it set up a fourth-and-2. Jameson Williams ran a short crossing route and had Reed beaten by a couple of steps, but the fourth-year receiver dropped the pass for the turnover on downs.
The team kept the drive going anyways for practice, and they were able to dink and dunk their way down the field. Again, the offense got a little assistance from the coaching staff, allowing the play to continue when Aidan Hutchinson and Alex Anzalone picked up what would have likely been easy sacks. Still thanks to a nice play from Jahmyr Gibbs, catching a ball in tight coverage from Jack Campbell, they were able to get the ball into the red zone. St. Brown capped the drive with a short touchdown pass in the flats with 1:21 left.
From there, the Lions simulated a three-and-out stop, giving the ball back to the offense, down three with 56 seconds left, 80 yards to go, and zero timeouts. The drive lasted just two plays: a batted down pass from Hutchinson, and a pick from Avonte Maddox after the ball appeared to deflect high in the air off of Williams.
Prior to practice, coach Dan Campbell shrugged off concerns that the defense appears to be ahead of the offense right now.
“I think (the defense is) a handful right now,” Campbell said. “And then offensively, certainly, we want to be clicking a little bit better, but I also know we’re like this far away. Every practice you come out, it was even the other day, it’s like, we hold up a half second longer, and this is a 30-yard touchdown. Bad footwork on one play, Gibby spits out of there, instead of five (yards), we’re about to get 60 for a touchdown. So, we’re literally that close, and it’s just that’s how it works with offense, especially early, it’s one guy here, one guy here, one guy here, and it’s just the little minute details. They’re all correctable, that’s what’s awesome.‘
Without a doubt, some of the issues have come at the left tackle position, where Giovanni Manu is filling in for Dan Skipper, who was filling in for starter Taylor Decker. It was another rough day for Manu, with several miscommunications with left guard Christian Mahogany that left a free runner to pressure Jared Goff and some frustration between the two linemen. When asked if he was taking a bit of a leadership role with Manu—despite being from the same draft class—Mahogany shut down that talk.
“I wouldn’t say that at all. It’s not like that. I don’t want to make it seem like that,” Mahogany said. “It’s just we’re all peers here. I’m trying to coach up my buddy. I’m not above him in any way. That’s not—if it made it seem like that, we’re peers, we’re in the same draft class. He’s like a brother to me. I want to take care of him, make sure he’s doing everything right.”
Campbell isn’t using that as an excuse, either. While he knows Decker will make them better, he notes that it’s on the entire team to ensure the offense is able to function without one of their starters.
“You’ve still got to be able to move the ball if you don’t have one of those guys or two of them or three of them or whatever the case may be,” Campbell said. “So, you tinker with some stuff, you try to make it work, you keep a few more guys in on protection than maybe you ordinarily would, but that’s a part of the task of moving the football against your defense in practice.”
It’ll likely be Manu out there at left tackle for the start of Friday’s preseason game. We’ll see if the offense—sans most of its starters and with Hendon Hooker at quarterback—can hold up any better than they did in last week’s Hall of Fame game.
Some OL depth shifting
At this point, I’ve lost track of where we are in the backup center rotation, but on Wednesday, it was Michael Niese as the backup and Kingsley Eguakun with the third team. More notably was a small shift in the guard rotation. For nearly all of training camp, it has been Netane Muti and Kayode Awosika as the second-team guards. However, on Wednesday, I saw Trystan Colon get work at second-team left guard over Muti. Muti started practice with the third team and got sprinkled in with the second team eventually, but that’s got to be a good sign for Colon after a strong preseason showing as the second-half center against the Chargers.
Of note, too, with no Dan Skipper and Jamarco Jones—and Manu working exclusively with the first-team—both Mason Miller and Justin Herron had to pull double duty at tackle with both the second and third teams. Expect both to get a lot of action on Friday. It’s also possible the Lions play Colby Sorsdal at tackle in the preseason game, but it’s worth noting he only worked at guard on Wednesday.
Other news and notes:
- While the offense struggled overall, there were some early promising runs from the unit, including an outside run where Giovanni Manu did a great job walling off Tyleik Williams from the left edge. That allowed Gibbs to turn it upfield for at least 10 yards.
- If you thought the Lions were done with Grant Stuard at kickoff return after his game-opening fumble, think again. He remains in the rotation there.
- I thought it was a very, very strong day from Tate Ratledge, even though it’s hard to judge fully without full pads on. I’m impressed by his mental processing. He did a great job walling off Williams and getting to the second level on Alex Anzalone on one play. Then, later in practice, he and Penei Sewell perfectly stopped a stunt between Williams and Aidan Hutchinson.
- Keith Cooper continues to stick out for the right reasons. Getting time on both the interior and edge, Cooper notched a big pass knockdown on fourth down during a two-minute drill.
- Speaking of, the second-team offense had their own opportunity to complete an end-of-game drill. The scenario: 1:16 left, down four points, starting on their own 38-yard line with one timeout. While they failed on the aforementioned Cooper pass breakup, they continued the drive anyway. A big play to Jackson Meeks for 16 yards helped move them near the red zone, but Hendon Hooker had to resort to two jump balls from the 22-yard line to find the end zone, and neither Isaac TeSlaa nor Meeks could come down with it. Tyson Russell had strong coverage on both attempts.
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