The Detroit Lions and Miami Dolphins were back at it on Thursday for the second, and final, joint practice between the two. As with Wednesday, most of the work was given to the first teamers, leaving limited opportunities for the reserves. However, they’ll get their chance on Saturday afternoon when the two teams meet for the Ford Field preseason opener at 1 p.m. ET.
After offering my observations of the Lions defense on Day 1, I shifted my focus entirely to the offense on Day 2. Here’s what I noticed from practice.
Offensive line 1-on-1 standouts
- Much like Al Karsten noted in his Day 1 observations, it was a near perfect series for the starting offensive line. I had them with wins in seven of their 10 reps, with pushes in two, and the only loss coming to Graham Glasgow, who let Benito Jones slip by him, but still managed to stick with him.
- Penei Sewell absolutely stonewalled Chop Robinson in both of their reps
- Taylor Decker was even more impressive in his two reps against Bradley Chubb. On the first, Chubb had nowhere to go. On the second, Decker showed he’s still got plenty of athleticism with him, shuffling to match Chubb’s speed to the outside.
- Tate Ratledge had one of the more dominant wins of the group, barely giving up an inch to Matthew Butler
- It wasn’t a great series for Kingsley Eguakun, who got blown several yards back by Jordan Phillips, but he did come back with a draw against Zeek Biggers.
- The most surprising standout was relatively-new offensive tackle Gunner Britton, who absolutely handled Cameron Goode. He faced off in a draw the next rep, but it’s also worth noting he repped at both left and right tackle. More on him later.
Physical day running the ball
The Lions opened team activities with a drill meant to dig themselves out of their own zone. Starting at their own 1-yard line, Detroit fed Montgomery for gains of 3 and 6. On third-and-1, it appeared he got stuffed by crashing linebacker Jordyn Brooks after Ratledge was late to pull, but Montgomery bounced off the tackle anyway and was awarded a first down.
Then the Lions flipped the field and ran red zone drills with the first and second teams. Sione Vaki got a lot of looks with the second team and ran with power. He found the end zone on a 5-yard run, but on a two-point conversion, the Dolphins swarmed him in the backfield. Eguakun and Zach Horton blew their blocks on the play. In a later series, Vaki found the end zone again, running behind center Michael Niese, who walled off the defender nicely. Britton was working in with the second-team offense at right tackle—splitting time with Mason Miller—and he had a very strong run to spring one of Vaki’s touchdowns.
Hendon Hooker only attempted a single pass during red zone drills. On a play-action boot, he had Horton wide open, but missed him badly.
The first-team offense was a little more pass-heavy in their initial red zone series. After a Jahmyr Gibbs run went for just 3 yards, the Lions scored touchdowns on three straight plays—all passes in which the Lions receiver definitively won their coverage. Amon-Ra St won an out-route, Jameson Williams got wide open for a 2-yard score, and Detroit used tempo at the line—a Ben Johnson staple—to catch the Dolphins off guard for an easy touchdown pass to David Montgomery.
Kick return/coverage teams
I didn’t pay all that much attention to the results of plays on kickoff, because with no live tackling, it gives the deceiving look that every return is for a touchdown. However, I did take note of the personnel for the “starters.” At this point in camp, the Lions are likely making some decisions on who they want to be on these critical special teams plays, so these players are likely in good shape to make the 53-man roster right now.
Kick return “starters”: Rock Ya-Sin, Derrick Barnes, Isaac TeSlaa, Trevor Nowaske, Brock Wright, Ian Kennelly, Nate Lynn, Shane Zylstra, Zach Cunningham, Sione Vaki (returner), and Grant Stuard (returner).
Kick coverage “starters” (missing one player): Rock Ya-Sin, Trevor Nowaske, Grant Stuard, Craig Reynolds, Sione Vaki, Derrick Barnes, Pat O’Connor, Avonte Maddox, Isaac TeSlaa, and Jake Bates.
Explosive plays from the offense
The Lions had a simulated drive start from the 50-yard line, and that’s when the offense really started to open it up again. The very first play was a play-action deep shot to Jameson Williams for an easy score. Jared Goff had perfect protection and laid a perfect ball to Williams, who had a few steps of separation.
They opted to run it back from the 50, and that’s when Montgomery found a huge hole behind Ratledge and Sewell for a 20-yard gain. Williams was also doing a great job blocking downfield. Overall, the Lions opted to run behind Ratledge and Sewell several times on Thursday, and mostly had success. After practice, Ratledge commented on the budding chemistry between him and Sewell.
“I think he knows how I’m going to fit up on double teams, I know how he’s going to fit up on double teams,” Ratledge said. “So kinda just playing off each other has gotten more cleaner and smoother. Instead of just playing football, we’re reacting off each other, knowing what each other are going to do.”
Detroit ran into some trouble late in the drive after St. Brown couldn’t come down with a one-handed grab, and pressure forced a checkdown to Gibbs. However, after an offsides penalty turned a fourth-and-7 into a fourth-and-2, the Lions ran Montgomery behind the right side of the line again for an easy pickup of 7 yards. They opted to call the drill there.
“It makes life pretty easy,” Ratledge continued on Sewell. “A lot of the times, you get help when you’re not expecting it from him, so playing next to him—and also that mentor aspect of it. I can lean on him whenever I have questions in the film room, on the field.”
Watching Jahmyr Gibbs through Barry Sanders’ eyes
To step out of reporter mode for a second and into fan mode, I was geeking out a bit toward the end of practice when I had unknowingly parked myself right next to Lions legend Barry Sanders during some red zone work. As luck would have it, this series featured a lot of Jahmyr Gibbs, and I got to watch Barry watch Gibbs.
On the first play on the drive, they pitched it out to Gibbs, who had to beat Bradley Chubb one-on-one in the open field. While there was no live tackling, it’s pretty safe to say Chubb would’ve ended up whiffing, and the grin on Sanders’ face told me he agreed. Later in the drive, Gibbs fought through traffic to find a lane for a 5-yard touchdown, and Sanders erupted in applause.
Lions draw with Dolphins in situation drill
Like on Wednesday, both teams ended with an end-of-game scenario. The scenario on Thursday:
Down 4 points, starting from their own 48-yard line with 59 seconds left and 1 timeout
The Lions offense started with a quick curl to Shane Zylstra, but Goff was nearly intercepted after Kalif Raymond appeared to cut his post route short, and Storm Duck nearly picked it off. Detroit moved the sticks on third down after Goff threw an impromptu shove pass to Zylstra on a scramble play. However, the drive was derailed when Matthew Butler broke free and sacked Goff, who appeared to be looking for a deep shot.
That left the offense still near midfield and without a timeout. Gof was able to get them into the red zone with a nice deepshot to St. Brown for 20 and a quick out to Jameson Williams to stop the clock. But with only time for one pass from the 19-yard line, there was too much traffic for St. Brown to get his hands on an in-breaking pass, and the Dolphins defense won.
However, when Tua Tagovailoa took the field for the Dolphins’ shot at the drill, he would not stay out there long. Amik Robertson broke up the first pass on a quick curl to Nick Westbrook-Ikhine. Miami probably got away with a should-be sack from Aidan Hutchinson, but just turned it into a few yards on a dump play. Tight end Hayden Rucci dropped a pass after likely feeling a Lions defender closing in on him. And on fourth down, Brian Branch had perfect coverage and knocked away a pass intended for Tarik Black. Four-and-out. Of note: Nick Whiteside was with the first-team offense that drive, giving Terrion Arnold a break.
Other notes:
- It was another very strong day from Amon-Ra St. Brown. His best play was when the Lions were backed into a third-and-7. St. Brown fought through clear pass interference from Mike Hilton (it drew a flag), still caught the pass, and then had the wherewithal to fight through the tackle to dive forward for the conversion. Gibbs would score on the next play.
- Speaking of… while watching OL/DL drills, I missed out on 7-on-7s. After sharing notes with the Detroit News’ Rich Silva, he pointed out some standouts from those drills. The first team managed just a couple of checkdowns in their first four reps, but in their second series of plays, Goff went 4-for-4, including a pair of touchdowns to St. Brown. With the twos, Isaac TeSlaa scored a touchdown on a bit of a scramble drill.
- Jake Bates was perfect on the day, with consecutive makes from 34, 38, 43, 49, and 53 yards during a special teams period.
- Dan Skipper nearly started a fight—a fairly common occurrence during joint practices. During an 11-on-11 red zone drill, he absolutely crushed K.J. Britt and essentially jumped on top of him after Britt was face-first in the dirt. Britt got up swinging at Skipper after the play, but the two were separated from each other.
- After being limited on Wednesday with cramps, Kalif Raymond was back with the first-team offense for nearly the entire practice.
- After throwing punches on Wednesday, Jameson Williams and Ifeatu Melifonwu were getting in each other’s faces several times, regardless of whether they were lined up opposite each other or not. Both made a few plays on Thursday and immediately let the other know about it.
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