March 21, 2026, 9:11 a.m. ET<\/p>\n
This offseason, the Lions<\/a> signed Cade Mays<\/a> to be the starter at center. For his backup, picking one up late in the draft might be a good idea. Jager Burton projects to be available in the later rounds and could be a good choice for the Lions<\/a> with his low-moderate medical concern level.<\/p>\n Here is the excerpt of my medical report on Burton<\/a>:<\/p>\n (Ages in parentheses are at start of 2026 season and are factored into the concern level. Injury info and ages based on available public information are unverified and subject to update. Games played data courtesy of\u00a0sports-reference.com<\/a>.)<\/p>\n Jager Burton, C (24) – Kentucky<\/p>\n Projected round 5-7.\u00a0Mocked to Lions in 6th round by Jeff Risdon.<\/a><\/p>\n Expert NFL picks: Exclusive betting insights only at USA TODAY.<\/a><\/p>\n Concern level 3\/10<\/p>\n Could the Jager \u201cMeister\u201d solve the Lions center quandary in the late rounds? (I have no idea\u2026 if that\u2019s his actual nickname.)<\/p>\n Burton has generally been reliable but has missed games in 2 of the past 3 seasons. Reassuringly, he played all games in 2025.<\/p>\n His age is also a concern, but for a late-round pick, the extra experience can be viewed as a positive.<\/p>\n For more\u00a0Lions<\/a>\u00a0coverage, follow us on X,\u00a0@TheLionsWire<\/a>, and give our\u00a0Facebook<\/a>\u00a0page a like.\u00a0Follow Jimmy on X,\u00a0@JimmyLiaoMD<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"March 21, 2026, 9:11 a.m. ET This offseason, the Lions signed Cade Mays to be the starter at…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":825107,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[3],"tags":[95878,7,6,52959,96502,95882,100374,96242,95893,114332,95896,95888,95899,96071,95902,95883,95881],"class_list":{"0":"post-825106","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nfl","8":"tag-accessfree","9":"tag-football","10":"tag-nfl","11":"tag-sstssportsnfllions","12":"tag-sstsnlions","13":"tag-tagamerican-football","14":"tag-tagcade-mays","15":"tag-tagdetroit-lions","16":"tag-tagfacebook","17":"tag-tagkentucky","18":"tag-tagnational-sports","19":"tag-tagnfl","20":"tag-tagoverall-neutral","21":"tag-tagsmg-timely","22":"tag-tagsport-scores-statistics","23":"tag-tagsports-news","24":"tag-typestory"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/116267385711025717","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/825106","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=825106"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/825106\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/825107"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=825106"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=825106"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=825106"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}