With the final preseason game in the books, it\u2019s decision time for the Detroit Lions. For months, players have made their case for the 53-man roster both on and off the field, and by 6 p.m. ET on Sunday, the Lions must make those final decisions.<\/p>\n
On Saturday night, our staff made those same tough decisions. As we\u2019ve been doing all training camp, we made our predictions for which Lions players on the roster bubble are IN the roster, and who is OUT.<\/p>\n
Here are our choices for the offense and a full explanation for each position below. And if you want to see full 53-man roster predictions, you can see them here:<\/p>\n
Final Detroit Lions 53-man roster prediction: Erik Schlitt<\/a>Final Detroit Lions 53-man roster prediction: Jeremy Reisman<\/a>Assumed in: Jared GoffJosh Dobbs: 11 \u201cIN votes (up 5)Luke Altmyer: 1 vote (down 4)<\/p>\n Josh Dobbs\u2019 nearly perfect performance in the preseason finale\u201415-of-19 for 128 yards, 2 TDs, 129.8 passer rating\u2014was enough to make him a unanimous \u201cIN\u201d among our staff. While this battle was certainly back and forth, in the end, he avoided the negative plays, while Luke Altmyer had two turnovers (though one wasn\u2019t really his fault).<\/p>\n Brett Whitefield was able to fit both quarterbacks on the roster, and I think that does speak to Altmyer\u2019s relatively strong August. In my opinion, he still very much deserves 53-man roster consideration, and I\u2019m willing to bet everyone on staff who had him out hopes he returns to the practice squad to continue his development and build on a relatively strong foundation.<\/p>\n Assumed in: Jahmyr Gibbs, Isiah PachecoSione Vaki: 11 votes (no change)Jacob Saylors: 11 votes (no change)Jabari Small: 0 votes<\/p>\n Once again, I considered adding Trayveon Williams to the bubble and bringing down Isiah Pacheco, given his current unknown injury status. But with no clear timeline on Pacheco, I\u2019d rather not assume the worst. After all, Campbell said he was improving this week.<\/p>\n Jacob Saylors proved beyond any doubt that he has earned a spot on the roster, while Jabari Small suffered yet another preseason injury.<\/p>\n Assumed in: Amon-Ra St. Brown, Jameson Williams, Isaac TeSlaa, Greg DortchOff bubble watch: Cedrick Wilson (IR)Tay Martin: 11 votes (up 3)Dominic Lovett: 0 votes (down 1)Tom Kennedy: 0 votes (no change)New to bubble watch: Lucky Jackson (0 votes)<\/p>\n Lucky Jackson takes Cedrick Wilson\u2019s place on the roster bubble thanks to an outstanding preseason finale from the veteran receiver. That said, he wasn\u2019t able to garner a single vote from our staff. Instead, we\u2019re all sticking with Tay Martin as Detroit\u2019s WR5, and no one opted to keep a sixth.<\/p>\n Martin has been steady all preseason, contributes regularly on special teams, and added a touchdown and third-down conversion against the Colts on Saturday.<\/p>\n Assumed in: Sam LaPorta, Brock WrightTyler Conklin: 11 \u201cIN\u201d votes (no change)Jackson Meeks: 9 votes (no change)Thomas Gordon: 0 votes (no change) <\/p>\n Meeks had another fairly strong outing in the preseason finale, but he didn\u2019t seem to change anyone\u2019s mind on the staff. He\u2019s very much one of the last players in or out depending on your perspective, but kudos to him for making it a serious conversation despite still very much learning the nuances of the tight end position.<\/p>\n Assumed in: Penei Sewell, Blake Miller, Larry BoromColby Sorsdal: 0 votes (no change)Devin Cochran: 0 votes (no change)<\/p>\n It would be a pretty big shock if the Lions\u2019 offensive tackle room looked any different than this. The entire Lions offensive line looked strong against the Colts, so it\u2019s possible someone like Devin Cochran gets consideration, but that feels much more likely to be a practice squad add.<\/p>\n Assumed in: Tate Ratledge, Christian Mahogany, Miles FrazierAssumed on IR: Cade MaysJuice Scruggs: 11 votes (no change)Ben Bartch: 11 votes (up 1)Seth McLaughlin: 5 votes (down 3)Michael Niese: 0 votes (no change)New to bubble watch: Mason Miller: 0 votes<\/p>\n Scruggs is a lock as the Week 1 starter, and Ben Bartch\u2014who was initially considered a serious contender for the starting left guard job\u2014likely has secured a job by simply remaining healthy for over a week. He, too, was strong in the preseason finale.<\/p>\n The question now is simply whether the Lions will keep a ninth offensive lineman and who that will be. The staff is currently split evenly, with Seth McLaughlin being the only reserve to garner an OL9 vote\u2014he got five. That said, I do wonder if the Lions will consider Mason Miller after the week he had. With no center experience, he backfilled for McLaughlin (who was in concussion protocol), and besides an understandable snap exchange issue or two, was pretty remarkable.<\/p>\n \u201cI was proud of Mason Miller,\u201d Campbell said after the game. \u201cHe has not played at center [\u2026] but we worked him all week at center, we were going to give him the start, and minus the\u2014we had one quarterback, center exchange (issue)\u2014man, I thought he played pretty dang clean. He was firing off the ball.\u201d<\/p>\n That late performance was not enough to get a vote from our staff, but you better believe he is someone Detroit is at least considering for the practice squad.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"With the final preseason game in the books, it\u2019s decision time for the Detroit Lions. For months, players…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":830954,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[2131,5192,2132,99],"class_list":["post-830953","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-detroit-lions-analysis","tag-detroit-lions-opinion","tag-detroit-lions-roster","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/830953","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=830953"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/830953\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/830954"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=830953"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=830953"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=830953"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}