We\u2019ve officially entered Week 2 of Detroit Lions training camp, and the pads are on, fans are out, and the players are excited. <\/p>\n
On July 31, Detroit faces off against the Los Angeles Chargers at the Hall of Fame Game in Canton, Ohio, to kick off the NFL preseason.<\/p>\n
With under one week until the team gets to go up against players in different-colored uniforms, they, along with new offensive coordinator John Morton, spoke on their confidence heading into the season. <\/p>\n
New Offensive Coordinator Pressure <\/p>\n
Morton has taken the reins of the Lions\u2019 offense as the team\u2019s new offensive coordinator. He fills the gap left by Ben Johnson, after the ex-Lions OC took a head coaching job with the Chicago Bears. This isn\u2019t Morton\u2019s first rodeo with Detroit. He spent the 2022 season working under Johnson as an offensive assistant. <\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t feel pressure. The good thing is I was here a few years ago, so that helps a lot. A lot of these players knew who I am,\u201d said Morton. \u201cThis is my 27th year, so you should always feel pressure, but I don\u2019t feel anxious or anything like that. I feel very confident,\u201d Morton continued. <\/p>\n
One thing training camp has taught us is that the Lions aren\u2019t going away from what worked last season. Morton has been utilizing as many offensive weapons as possible, as the team had one of the best offenses in football last year. <\/p>\n
\u201cThe one thing that\u2019s impressed me is all these weapons. I\u2019m just trying to get guys the ball as much as I can,\u201d said Morton. \u201cWe got a smart, tough football team that\u2019s the way this thing is built, and I\u2019m real happy with where we\u2019re at right now,\u201d Morton concluded. <\/p>\n
Tim Patrick\u2019s Confidence Entering 2025 Season <\/p>\n
Lions\u2019 wide receiver Tim Patrick is entering his eighth NFL season. Last year, Patrick spent the entirety of training camp with the Denver Broncos. He was cut at the end of camp by Denver and then ended up in Detroit after that. Patrick reflected on the difficulties of training camp so far: <\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s my first camp with the team. Obviously, I was here last year, but camp is where you really find who you have, you bond with your teammates, you go to war every day because camp is hard,\u201d said Patrick. \u201cThis is my first time going through a camp like this, so yeah, I\u2019m starting off a little slow, but I promise you by the time the season comes, I\u2019m going to be firing on all cylinders,\u201d Patrick added. <\/p>\n
Despite the entire Lions team believing they aren\u2019t in peak form just yet, no one is short on confidence that the team will be a force of nature this season. <\/p>\n
\u201cWe have a great team. I knew we had a great team last year, but it\u2019s looking like the people that needed to take the next step took the next step,\u201d said Patrick. \u201cIt\u2019s very good looking into this year,\u201d Patrick added. <\/p>\n
Brian Branch\u2019s Belief in the Secondary <\/p>\n
Lions\u2019 Safety Brian Branch is back for year three in Detroit after his first Pro-Bowl season last year. A new defensive coordinator in Kelvin Sheppard this season doesn\u2019t bring Branch any worry, the way things are trending. <\/p>\n
\u201cI feel like with Coach Shep [Sheppard], he brings the same message as Coach AG [Aaron Glenn, Lions Defensive Coordinator 2021-24] did last year. And I feel like with everybody coming back this year, everybody healthy. It\u2019s really the first week of camp, so the sky\u2019s the limit, I feel like, with us,\u201d said Branch. <\/p>\n
It\u2019s no news to anyone that the Lions were riddled with injuries last season. Despite that, Branch believes that Detroit\u2019s secondary didn\u2019t lose a step. To Branch, this season, the rest of the league should be on notice. <\/p>\n
\u201cWe believe that we were the best secondary last year,\u201d said Branch. \u201cIt\u2019s us against the world, and I feel like this year our chemistry is on a whole other level. That alone is scary, we just got to keep on going,\u201d Branch said. <\/p>\n
You can watch the Lions\u2019 first preseason game against the Chargers right here on Local 4, July 31. Kickoff is set for 8 p.m. <\/p>\n
Copyright 2025 by WDIV ClickOnDetroit – All rights reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"We\u2019ve officially entered Week 2 of Detroit Lions training camp, and the pads are on, fans are out,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":244287,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2071],"tags":[146,113,2506,7,147,6,15004],"class_list":{"0":"post-244286","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-detroit-lions","8":"tag-detroit","9":"tag-detroit-lions","10":"tag-detroitlions","11":"tag-football","12":"tag-lions","13":"tag-nfl","14":"tag-wayne-county"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/114934257274781698","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/244286","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=244286"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/244286\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/244287"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=244286"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=244286"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=244286"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}