Lions’ Keith Cooper Jr. shares inspiring message with former HS team
Detroit Lions defensive lineman Keith Cooper Jr. speaks to players on the Dickinson High School football team during the summer of 2025.
Provided by John Snelson
Detroit Lions safety Morice Norris left the field in an ambulance after suffering an apparent head injury at the beginning of the fourth quarter of the team’s preseason game against the Atlanta Falcons on Friday, Aug. 8.
Norris, a second-year player out of Fresno State, was making a play on Falcons‘ running back Nathan Carter (a Michigan State alumnus) on the first play of the fourth quarter when his head appeared to snap back after colliding with Carter’s leg. He collapsed on the field, was attended to immediately by medical personnel and was taken off the field in an ambulance.
According to the Lions, Norris is in stable condition and has feeling in his extremities:
Morice Norris is in stable condition and has feeling and movement in all his extremities. He will remain at Grady Memorial Hospital in Atlanta overnight for observation.
We would like to thank the Atlanta Falcons organization, the EMS team at Mercedes-Benz Stadium and the…
— Detroit Lions (@Lions) August 9, 2025
Instead of playing out the rest of the quarter, the Falcons and Lions agreed to run out the rest of the clock without playing, and the game was suspended with 6:19 left to go.
Here’s what we know about what happened:
At this point, Norris’ injury is unclear.
He suffered a hit to the head while attempting to tackle Carter on a running play in the fourth quarter. He was taken to a local hosptial, and there is no word yet of an official diagnosis from a medical professional.
Campbell said he received “positive information” about his condition and relayed that info to his team.
In a postgame news conference, Campbell said that Norris was at the hospital and receiving treatment, but didn’t get into specifics about his condition.
“He’s breathing, he’s talking,” he said. “He has some movement, and now they’re running more tests.”
The Lions later confirmed that Norris is in stable condition.
Campbell called the Norris injury an “eye-opener.”
“It hits a little different, and it puts things in perspective,” he said.
Campbell gathered the Lions players into a huddle in the middle of the field shortly after Norris was taken out on an amublance, and he shared what he knew about his condition:
“I just told them to pray for him, because at that point we didn’t have much,” he said. “And I told them, we’re taking knees, we’re taking knees for the rest of the game. They are and we are, until this thing is over.”
How did other Detroit Lions players react?
In a postgame news conference, Lions quarterback Kyle Allen acknowledged that players on both sidelines didn’t want to continue playing after witnessing the hit.
“We weren’t part of that decision, but I think you could look in everyone’s eyes and see that it’s just not worth it,” he said.
Allen recognized the inherent risk of playing football, but also said the Norris play was “just awful.”
“You sign up for football, you understand injury, and you put your body on the line. But you never think that something like that is going to happen,” he said. “I’m just praying for everybody in the locker room, too, that watched and saw that going on. But most importantly for Mo.”
This story has been updated to include the team’s update on Norris.
You can reach Christian at cromo@freepress.com.