you can check our unofficial injury\/participation report here. <\/a><\/p>\nThe Lions\u2019 practice was very similar to the previous two we\u2019ve watched. The format: 30-ish minutes of walk\/jog-throughs, positional drills, special teams drills, and one full-team drill. This week, they worked on punting during special teams, and we saw a full 11-on-11 situational drill at the end of practice. The walkthroughs were slightly different this week: instead of working on two separate fields between the first and second teams, they were all on one field running simulated drives.<\/p>\n
This was the second straight practice in which they did not run any 7-on-7 drills in front of the media, which, at this point, feels intentional. That makes observations pretty difficult with almost zero full-speed drills and no pads, but I\u2019ll do my best.<\/p>\n
However, next week the Lions won\u2019t be able to hide any drills with both minicamp practices being open to the media.<\/p>\n
While it\u2019s important not to read too much into rep order at this time of year, it is an interesting peek into what Campbell and company may be thinking about the standings of each player. Here are some interesting notes from Thursday\u2019s practice:<\/p>\n
Larry Borom continues to rep ahead of rookie Blake Miller, but they are splitting time nearly evenly. Miller is getting plenty of work with the first-team offense, and it feels like it\u2019s only a matter of time before that job becomes fully his to lose.<\/p>\n
Don\u2019t sleep on Juice Scruggs<\/p>\n
Scruggs, who the Lions obtained in the David Montgomery, has consistently been the backup center during the spring program, but on Thursday he even got a small amount of work with the first-team offense at left guard. That spot has been occupied by Christian Mahogany nearly all of OTAs, while Miles Frazier has commonly repped with the second team.<\/p>\n
Scruggs seems like the front-runner for the backup center job, and so it makes sense for Detroit to test out whether he can be a versatile reserve at multiple positions.<\/p>\n
Khalil Dorsey, come on down<\/p>\n
With no Terrion Arnold, Rock Ya-Sin, and Ennis Rakestraw, the Lions were severely shorthanded at outside cornerback. That left Dorsey to team up with D.J. Reed for the first-team defense. Behind them were Nick Whiteside and De\u2019Shawn Rucker.<\/p>\n
Dorsey brings a ton of special team skills, including excellent play as a gunner. But he remains relatively inexperienced on defense. While it\u2019s only OTAs, this was good experience for the 28-year-old corner.<\/p>\n
As it has been all spring, Jack Campbell, Derrick Barnes, and Malcolm Rodriguez make up the starting linebacking crew. When they\u2019re in nickel, it\u2019s Campbell and Barnes.<\/p>\n
As of right now, it looks like the next two up are Damone Clark and Joe Bachie, although rookie Jimmy Rolder has worked his way into that group occasionally, as well.<\/p>\n
My two early dark-horse candidates<\/p>\n
One other interesting order of reps that has been consistent all of OTAs is Tyler Lacy getting very early work. When the Lions need a 4i or a 5-tech, he seems to be the first one out there, notably ahead of Levi Onwuzurike. Perhaps they are just working Onwuzurike slowly into the lineup, as he\u2019s coming off a year lost to an ACL, but I don\u2019t think we should underestimate Lacy, either. Campbell mentioned Lacy\u2019s size as an asset in that \u201cbig end\u201d role.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe have got some length now, we have got some size and length and athletic ability on the perimeter,\u201d Campbell said. \u201cYou know Lacy is that, but he\u2019s a little more of that big end, big stack, but we are big, we are long and so you can\u2019t wait for training camp, you know, you just can\u2019t wait.\u201d<\/p>\n
The other player who caught my eye is receiver Cedrick Wilson. Admittedly, he is still repping very late in the rotation, but the nine-year veteran turned around rookie Keith Abney during a jog-through red zone drill, and he displayed some skills during a gunner drill.<\/p>\n
Wilson was a late add, so I think he\u2019s being overlooked. But after the Kendrick Law injury<\/a>, there is room on the roster for a receiver with special teams skills, and Wilson has played in at least 10 games in six consecutive seasons, although his special teams playing time has been limited to just 381 total snaps.<\/p>\nOffense wins situation drill<\/p>\n
Our first taste of true 11-on-11 drills came toward the end of practice, where the team competed in the following end-of-game situation:<\/p>\n
Offense down 4 points40 seconds left1 timeoutStarting on opponent\u2019s 44-yard line<\/p>\n
Here\u2019s how each play went:<\/p>\n
False startPost route to Amon-Ra St. Brown, who had beaten Roger McCreary by a few steps for an easy 19 yardsCheckdown to Jahmyr Gibbs, \u201ctackled\u201d by Malcolm Rodriguez after a 3-yard gainOverthrow\/throw-away to St. Brown on an out routeCrossing route to ST. Brown for 18 yards \u2014 timeout with 7 seconds leftBack of the endzone pass to Jameson Williams for a toe-tapping touchdown, but ruled incompleteRefs called pass interference on someoneQuick slant to Williams, incomplete, but Reed was called for holdingUntimed down from the 1-yard line: Jared Goff sneaks in for an easy TD. Defense looked like it only had a three-man front, so it was a very easy score from Goff.Funny moment during practice when Penei Sewell appeared to be called for illegal man downfield: he quickly picked up the flag and stuck it in his pocket so no one saw it.Other players who were working on the gunner drill: Isaac TeSlaa, Kyre Duplessis, Roger McCreary, D.J. Reed, Khalil Dorsey, Christian Izien, Dominic Lovett, Keith Abney, Malik Cunningham, Nick Whiteside, De\u2019Shawn RuckerThe quarterbacks briefly worked on a neat rollout drill, where they would navigate the pocket, roll to their right, and try to hit a dummy on the back of a golf cart moving full speed in the end zone. Both Goff and Luke Altmyer connected on about half of their attempts from about 15-20 yards away.Practice ended with a competition between the offense and defense fielding punts. The offense lost after Dominic Lovett dropped his attempt. He also had a tough drop during individual drills. Greg Dortch, Reed, and Tom Kennedy all caught their attempts.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Detroit Lions closed out their ninth and final OTA practice on Thursday afternoon. Next week, their offseason…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":916341,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[449,153,23208,23618,7452,7,6],"class_list":["post-916340","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nfl","tag-detroit-lions-analysis","tag-detroit-lions-news","tag-detroit-lions-otas","tag-detroit-lions-preseason","tag-detroit-lions-training-camp","tag-football","tag-nfl"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/116733880801430783","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/916340","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=916340"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/916340\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/916341"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=916340"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=916340"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=916340"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}