The Detroit Lions are done with joint practices, for now.
During the NFL owners meetings in Arizona, Lions coach Dan Campbell said they will not be scheduling joint practices during training camp in 2026 because he believes they’ve lost their value over the past few years they’ve been doing them.
“I felt like we got two really good years of it, man, like, we’re really getting something out of this. And then as it kind of went on, we got into that third year, whatever that was, or ’24, I don’t know, it just felt counterproductive, man,” Campbell said, per the Detroit Free Press. “It didn’t feel like we were getting what I thought we would get out of it and part of me was like, I think we would have gotten more – we’d have gotten an extra practice and we’d have gotten more done had we just gone against ourselves.”
The Lions have done joint practices in each of the past four years. In 2022, they traveled to Indianapolis for practices against the Colts. In 2023, they hosted both the Giants and Jaguars. In 2024, they traveled to take on the Giants, and last year, they invited both the Texans and the Dolphins to Allen Park.
Joint practices are a big endeavor, fitting two full teams onto practice fields. In recent years, we’ve also seen the intensity rise, with some fights that have halted practice, and—on some occasions—ended them early. But the benefit is that you see different looks, break up the monotony of going up against the same players every day, and get your starters some game-like scenarios without subjecting them to full-contact preseason games.
However, it appears Detroit’s focus this training camp will be inward.
“Let’s just keep it about us, let’s go to work, set the schedule up and we can hit everything, we don’t have to get ready for the next opponent in a joint practice, we go right through it,” Campbell said.
As for the preseason, Campbell said he is open to the idea of playing the starters in those games after resting most for the past few preseasons.
The Lions’ 2026 training camp schedule is not out yet, but it’s expected to kick off at the end of July.
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