Alex Anzalone has been declared out for this game<\/a>, and after some contractual disputes to start the year, it\u2019s reasonable to think the veteran linebacker has played his final game as a Detroit Lion.<\/p>\nMalcolm Rodriguez is also on an expiring contract, but given he\u2019s much younger than Anzalone (31 vs. 26) and will almost certainly come much cheaper on a new contract, it\u2019s possible the Lions could view Rodriguez as Anzalone\u2019s successor.<\/p>\n
Coming off a torn ACL last year, Rodriguez hasn\u2019t played much at all on defense this season: just 32 total snaps. But having logged well over 1,000 defensive snaps over his first four years, we\u2019ve seen some promise from the 2022 sixth-round pick. That said, it\u2019s hard to know if Rodriguez is capable of being a full-time starter. A strong game against an impressive Bears offense would bolster his resum\u00e9 before hitting free agency.<\/p>\n
Isaac TeSlaa continues to grow<\/p>\n
This week, nearly every coach who stepped in front of the lectern had some glowing things to say about Lions rookie receiver Isaac TeSlaa.<\/p>\n
\u201cI would say he\u2019s probably grown more than anybody has throughout the year, as far as our young guys. He\u2019s grown the most. Just – and what you love about him is why he\u2019s here. Of course he\u2019s got ability, but he\u2019s smart, he\u2019s instinctive, he\u2019s tough, he\u2019s a finisher, he\u2019s resilient. Every week we\u2019ve been able to put more and more on him.\u201d<\/p>\n
Offensive coordinator John Morton<\/p>\n
\u201cRun and pass, he can do it all. He\u2019s tough, he\u2019s physical, he\u2019s smart. Man, he can catch. I mean I just – I love the hands. I love the hands. You could put the ball anywhere, you saw it last week when he caught that touchdown. I mean he\u2019s gotten a lot of touchdowns. I mean compared to receptions and touchdowns, that\u2019s pretty good. But he\u2019s – when you\u2019ve got a guy like that who can catch and he\u2019s a rookie and like I said, he\u2019s just blossomed every single week and in the run game.\u201d<\/p>\n
WR coach Scottie Montgomery <\/p>\n
\u201cHe has grown so much in this season, so I\u2019ve got to give him a lot of credit on pad level, ability to use his hands, shed, pushing back vertical, separating. All the things that I thought would be a little bit harder for him to come to him is (now) coming pretty easily.\u201d<\/p>\n
In TeSlaa\u2019s first 11 games, he saw just nine targets come his way. With a little more built-in trust with Jared Goff, he\u2019s received 17 targets in his last five games. So let\u2019s see that chemistry with Goff and overall development shine one more time in Chicago.<\/p>\n
Because it\u2019s Lions football, dangit<\/p>\n
I always say Lions football is better than no football, no matter how low the stakes or how bad the games. It will be eight months until the Lions play a regular season football game, and the wait is the worst part of the year. This season didn\u2019t go as we wanted, but Detroit still has a ton of talent that is a joy to watch every week. Be it Goff, Jahmyr Gibbs, Amon-Ra St. Brown, Jameson Williams, Aidan Hutchinson, Jack Campbell, or even Jack Fox, we are blessed with a very talented roster. It\u2019s easy to lose sight of all the talent when the wins aren\u2019t coming at the rate they used to, but we should still acknowledge how lucky we are right now, when this team sported only one superstar at a time for the past five or six decades.<\/p>\n
You may be frustrated with the team now, but you\u2019re going to miss them when we\u2019re five months deep into the offseason.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Sunday\u2019s 2025 Detroit Lions season finale is likely to be one of the least-watched games in the local…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":653820,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2071],"tags":[146,113,1262,2506,7,147,6],"class_list":{"0":"post-653819","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-detroit-lions-opinion","11":"tag-detroitlions","12":"tag-football","13":"tag-lions","14":"tag-nfl"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/115838134764802076","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/653819","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=653819"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/653819\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/653820"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=653819"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=653819"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=653819"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}