{"id":855763,"date":"2026-09-21T19:24:20","date_gmt":"2026-09-21T19:24:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/855763\/"},"modified":"2026-09-21T19:24:20","modified_gmt":"2026-09-21T19:24:20","slug":"lions-safety-avonte-maddox-out-for-year-as-detroit-seeks-db-shake-up","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/855763\/","title":{"rendered":"Lions safety Avonte Maddox out for year, as Detroit seeks DB \u2018shake up\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1upudxki _174s0un1 _174s0un0 _1mt21p01\">Detroit Lions coach Dan Campbell delivered tough injury news on Monday, noting that veteran safety Avonte Maddox will miss the rest of the 2026 season after suffering a foot injury on Thursday night that will require surgery.<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1upudxki _174s0un1 _174s0un0 _1mt21p01\">\u201cThat hurts a little bit,\u201d Campbell said. \u201cMaddox is a good player for us. Good solid football player, headsy. I hate that for him. But that\u2019s the hand that we\u2019re dealt, and we move forward.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1upudxki _174s0un1 _174s0un0 _1mt21p01\">Maddox was starting for the Lions at safety for the first two weeks of the season while Kerby Joseph and Brian Branch remain on the Physically Unable to Perform list (PUP). Both Joseph and Branch are eligible to return to practice this week, but <a href=\"https:\/\/www.prideofdetroit.com\/detroit-lions-injuries\/173963\/detroit-lions-brian-branch-kerby-joseph-injury-update-no-practice\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Campbell noted that both still need more time<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1upudxki _174s0un1 _174s0un0 _1mt21p01\">That leaves the Lions in a bit of a precarious spot at safety moving forward. Detroit has Chuck Clark and Thomas Harper capable of stepping in and starting, but the depth behind that only currently includes Christian Izien\u2014who has been playing more nickel lately.<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1upudxki _174s0un1 _174s0un0 _1mt21p01\">\u201cWe had a workout this morning just looking for a veteran guy, and we\u2019re looking for some of these safeties that are on other teams right now that are promising young players that we could potentially poach and bring in and let them compete,\u201d Campbell said. \u201cRight now, we\u2019ve got Chuck and Izzy and Harper, but we need to bring in some fresh players and get a look at them.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1upudxki _174s0un1 _174s0un0 _1mt21p01\">Beyond just being shorthanded at safety, the Lions also clearly need to shake up their secondary after two rough defensive performances to start the season. Campbell certainly hinted that some depth chart reorganization could be on the horizon.<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1upudxki _174s0un1 _174s0un0 _1mt21p01\">\u201cWe\u2019re going to do a couple of things defensively, we\u2019re going to move some guys around, we\u2019re going to give some guys some more opportunities to play here and shake it up a little bit,\u201d Campbell said. \u201cAnd because they\u2019ve earned that. We\u2019ve got some guys in here that have earned some play time that they deserve a chance to do more for us.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1upudxki _174s0un1 _174s0un0 _1mt21p01\">Campbell was asked specifically about two players who have started the season on the inactive list: defensive end Ahmed Hassanein and cornerback Ennis Rakestraw. The Lions coach didn\u2019t exactly sound eager about throwing them into the lineup, but didn\u2019t count it out either.<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1upudxki _174s0un1 _174s0un0 _1mt21p01\">\u201cRight now I\u2019m open to everything,\u201d Campbell said. \u201cI\u2019m open, and we\u2019re looking at everything. So, yeah, there\u2019s always a chance.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Detroit Lions coach Dan Campbell delivered tough injury news on Monday, noting that veteran safety Avonte Maddox will&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":855764,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[264323,4992,4993,99],"class_list":["post-855763","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-detroit-lions-injuries","tag-detroit-lions-news","tag-detroit-lions-quotes","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/855763","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=855763"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/855763\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/855764"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=855763"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=855763"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=855763"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}