April 4, 2026, 9:16 a.m. ET<\/p>\n
The Lions<\/a> may look to bolster the depth at the LB position despite the re-signing of Malcolm Rodriguez<\/a> to a 1-year deal. Jacob Rodriguez (no known relation) appears to be climbing the NFL draft board recently. However, he does carry some moderate medical concerns.<\/p>\n Here is the excerpt from my medical report on Jacob Rodriguez:<\/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 Jacob Rodriguez, LB (24) – Texas Tech<\/p>\n Projected round 2.\u00a0#45 on Daniel Jeremiah board March 5.<\/a><\/p>\n Expert NFL picks: Exclusive betting insights only at USA TODAY.<\/a><\/p>\n Concern level 4\/10<\/p>\n A Lisfranc injury of the foot is at high risk of residuals (see Ameer Abdullah, Kevin Jones), but Rodriguez has two years of perfect availability after that. Mileage and age are concerns here. With Jack Campbell at 26 and Derrick Barnes at 27 at the start of the season, the Lions<\/a> aren\u2019t dropping the average age at that position much if they go with Rodriguez.<\/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":"April 4, 2026, 9:16 a.m. ET The Lions may look to bolster the depth at the LB position…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":854622,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2071],"tags":[95878,146,113,2506,7,147,6,52959,96502,101065,95882,98047,96242,95893,96693,99959,95896,95888,95899,96071,95883,95894,95881],"class_list":{"0":"post-854621","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-detroit-lions","8":"tag-accessfree","9":"tag-detroit","10":"tag-detroit-lions","11":"tag-detroitlions","12":"tag-football","13":"tag-lions","14":"tag-nfl","15":"tag-sstssportsnfllions","16":"tag-sstsnlions","17":"tag-tagameer-abdullah","18":"tag-tagamerican-football","19":"tag-tagderrick-barnes","20":"tag-tagdetroit-lions","21":"tag-tagfacebook","22":"tag-tagjack-campbell","23":"tag-tagmalcolm-rodriguez","24":"tag-tagnational-sports","25":"tag-tagnfl","26":"tag-tagoverall-neutral","27":"tag-tagsmg-timely","28":"tag-tagsports-news","29":"tag-tagtwitter","30":"tag-typestory"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/116350452614243214","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/854621","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=854621"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/854621\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/854622"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=854621"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=854621"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=854621"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}