The Detroit Lions kicked off their media-open Organized Team Activity practices on Friday, closing out Week 1 of the program.<\/p>\n
The day started with coach Dan Campbell warning media and fans alike not to read too much into anything over the next few weeks of \u201cpajama parties.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThe OTAs we\u2019re really doing right now for this week, it\u2019s jog through with the team, and then we\u2019re moving pretty good on seven-on-seven,\u201d Campbell said. \u201cBut we\u2019ll have two spots. We\u2019re going to have two fields and walkthrough. So don\u2019t read into all that. \u2018I saw so-and-so on field two.\u2019 Okay. Doesn\u2019t mean anything, the guys know that too.\u201d<\/p>\n
It\u2019s a fair point to make, and he was sure to remind everyone that \u201cnobody\u2019s going to win a job in the spring.\u201d<\/p>\n
But with all due respect to Campbell, when the team is mostly running walkthroughs for an entire practice, there isn\u2019t much to note other than where certain players are playing, and what order they\u2019re repping in. So, as long as we all understand that how things look in the spring may not reflect how they look in September, let\u2019s jump into the observations from practice.<\/p>\n
First off, the practice essentially consisted of four main segments:<\/p>\n
A good chunk of 11-on-11 time ran slightly above walkthrough speedPositional drills7-on-7sSpecial teams (punt return\/coverage)<\/p>\n
Given that the offensive line has gone through the most changes this offseason, this feels like a good place to start. There was a heavy rotation involved on the starters\u2019 side of the field, but this was the most common lineup I saw:<\/p>\n
LT: Penei Sewell
LG: Christian Mahogany
C: Cade Mays
RG: Tate Ratledge
RT: Blake Miller<\/p>\n
Most notable here is that it appears Miller may not be getting the rookie treatment. Oftentimes, the Lions make their rookies work their way into the starting lineup, no matter when they were drafted. However, of the reps that I made note of, Miller was at right tackle for about 70-80% of them. I expected he\u2019d have to surpass veteran Larry Borom, but Detroit may have decided they don\u2019t want to waste time developing chemistry with Miller and company.<\/p>\n
Speaking of Borom, I did see both him and Miles Frazier serve in the jumbo tight end role a few times throughout practice.<\/p>\n
While Mahogany was clearly the \u201cstarter\u201d at left guard, Frazier and Juice Scruggs both took reps there. In fact, Frazier was playing both guard spots, and Scruggs logged reps at all three interior offensive line spots.<\/p>\n
Business as usual on defense<\/p>\n
Obviously, the frequency at which the team is going to deploy subpackages and nickel sets is far from determined at this point, and things remain very vanilla. But there was nothing noticeably different about how Detroit lined up defensively during team drills. While I can\u2019t get into specifics schematics, Detroit\u2019s base defense looked pretty familiar.<\/p>\n
When Detroit utilized three linebacker sets, the starters were predictably Jack Campbell, Derrick Barnes, and Malcolm Rodriguez. Roger McCreary was the starting nickel.<\/p>\n
In the secondary, D.J. Reed and Rock Ya-Sin held down the starting roles with Terrion Arnold out. Ennis Rakestraw also got some work with the starters. And with both starting safeties sidelined, Christian Izien and Chuck Clark were the most common pairing, although Avonte Maddox subbed in frequently.<\/p>\n
On the defensive line, Alim McNeill, Tyleik Williams, and Aidan Hutchinson were all clear starters, while the following defensive ends all split time with each other: DJ Wonnum, Tyler Lacy, Payton Turner, and rookie Derrick Moore. On the interior, Levi Onwuzurike and Chris Smith spelled McNeill and Williams.<\/p>\n
When the Lions went to 7-on-7s, the starters remained the same. Here\u2019s what the second-team defense looked like:<\/p>\n
CB: Khalil Dorsey
CB: Nick Whiteside
NB: Roger McCreary\/Keith Abney<\/p>\n
LB: Trevor Nowaske
LB: Jimmy Rolder
LB: Damone Clark<\/p>\n
S: Thomas Harper
S: Avonte Maddox<\/p>\n
CB: De\u2019Shawn Rucker
CB: Keith Abney<\/p>\n
LB: Erick Hunter
LB: Joe Bachie
LB: Trevor Nowaske<\/p>\n
S: Aamaris Brown
S: Dan Jackson<\/p>\n
Of note, Abney was working as the backup nickel and the third-string outside corner. While that may be because Detroit is shorthanded at outside cornerback, it\u2019s certainly notable that they are cross-training him.<\/p>\n
Some actual practice observations<\/p>\n
Because of the slow pace of walkthroughs and a relatively short 7-on-7 period, I will limit my play observations to a bullet point list for now.<\/p>\n
My favorite walkthrough rep was on a play where Tate Ratledge pulled to the left side of the formation and tried to \u201cblock\u201d Aidan Hutchinson. The Pro Bowl defensive end quickly swam by him, but then turned back and appeared to tell Ratledge something.During positional drills, I always find it noteworthy which specific receivers take passes from Jared Goff. In that entire portion of practice, it was these six players and only these six players: Amon-Ra St. Brown, Dominic Lovett, Jameson Williams, Isaac TeSlaa, Brock Wright, and Tyler Conklin. Consider that your early hierarchy among wideouts and tight ends.TeSlaa\u2019s hands are really fun to watch. Throughout receiving drills, he was making full extension hands catches, and he made it look very easy.During 7-on-7s, coverage held up pretty well, often forcing Jared Goff to progress to his second, third, and fourth looks. The one exception to that was Amon-Ra St. Brown, who logged catches against Rakestraw, McCreary, and Clark.Jameson Williams was up and down during 7-on-7s. He made a nice contested grab on a comeback route against Christian Izien, but Ya-Sin was all over him on a quick slant, forcing an incompletion.Play of the Day came from Jack Campbell, who aggressively punched a ball free from tight end Tyler Conklin for the forced fumble.Best route came from Dominic Lovett, who got a clean release on rookie corner Keith Abney (lined up outside). Abney tried to press Lovett, but the second-year receiver made him whiff and took a quick slant for a big gain.<\/p>\n
I like taking note of which players stayed after practice to get a little extra work in. This isn\u2019t an exhaustive list (I spend some of this time talking to players, as well), but here\u2019s who I saw working overtime:<\/p>\n
Greg DortchChuck ClarkJacob Saylors (kick returns)<\/p>\n
Working the sled dummies: <\/p>\n
Jack CampbellTrevor NowaskeDan Jackson<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Detroit Lions kicked off their media-open Organized Team Activity practices on Friday, closing out Week 1 of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":673168,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[63],"tags":[291781,2131,4992,39966,2130,349,99],"class_list":["post-673167","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nfl","tag-detroit-lions-otas","tag-detroit-lions-analysis","tag-detroit-lions-news","tag-detroit-lions-preseason","tag-detroit-lions-training-camp","tag-nfl","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/673167","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=673167"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/673167\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/673168"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=673167"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=673167"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=673167"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}