April 8, 2026, 11:42 a.m. ET<\/p>\n
The Lions<\/a> may be in the market for a safety in the upcoming NFL draft given the injury concerns of Kerby Joseph<\/a> and Brian Branch<\/a>. A mid-late round option is Michael Taaffe who has a low medical concern level and ran well at the combine.<\/p>\n Here is the excerpt from my medical report on Michael Taaffe:<\/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 Michael Taaffe, S (23) – Texas<\/p>\n Projected round 4-7. Ran 4.50 40-yard dash at combine.<\/p>\n Expert NFL picks: Exclusive betting insights only at USA TODAY.<\/a><\/p>\n Concern level 1\/10<\/p>\n Taaffe was very reliable in college except for a thumb surgery in his final season. He has proof of recovery with the thumb which means there is minimal concern going forward. He has otherwise been very reliable throughout his career.<\/p>\n He finished with 7 INT and 14 PBU in college.<\/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 8, 2026, 11:42 a.m. ET The Lions may be in the market for a safety in the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":861228,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2071],"tags":[95878,146,113,2506,7,147,6,52959,96502,95882,100085,96242,95893,96689,95896,95888,95899,96071,95883,97438,95894,95881],"class_list":{"0":"post-861227","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-tagamerican-football","18":"tag-tagbrian-branch","19":"tag-tagdetroit-lions","20":"tag-tagfacebook","21":"tag-tagkerby-joseph","22":"tag-tagnational-sports","23":"tag-tagnfl","24":"tag-tagoverall-neutral","25":"tag-tagsmg-timely","26":"tag-tagsports-news","27":"tag-tagtexas","28":"tag-tagtwitter","29":"tag-typestory"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/116370065794747523","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/861227","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=861227"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/861227\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/861228"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=861227"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=861227"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=861227"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}