Pride of Detroit
On a balmy Monday morning, the Detroit Lions returned to practice as they prepared for a week with the Miami Dolphins. On Wednesday, Mike McDaniel and company come to town for a pair of joint practices (Wednesday, Thursday) and a preseason bout (Saturday). Before that, the Lions got to work with themselves in a two-hour practice.
Here are my biggest notes from Monday’s session
Reminder: You can get a full injury/participation update here.
I thought the offense looked the best it has all training camp on Monday, and it started with individual drills. Rather than 1-on-1s between the wide receivers and defensive backs, the Lions opted to run some condensed formations. So it was often 2-vs-2 or even 3-vs-3 to work on route combinations from the offense and working through traffic/passing off assignments on defense. It’s a far more realistic drill than typical 1-on-1s.
What followed was a pretty dominant performance from the offense. Amon-Ra St. Brown handily beat Amik Robertson twice, including a deep wheel route where he had at least two steps on the nickel corner. On another rep, Sam LaPorta also cleared out space so that Kalif Raymond could run underneath freely with Brian Branch late to react. In fact, the only defensive “win” I saw during this session was Erick Hallett knocking down a pass intended for Ronnie Bell.
The scales continued to tilt toward the offense when they broke for red zone 7-on-7s. I had the Lions’ first-team offense finish with at least four touchdowns in a row, with passes to Jahmyr Gibbs (twice), St. Brown, and LaPorta. The best of which was a pass feathered to LaPorta on a wheel route just beyond the reach of Alex Anzalone.
It was a little harder to judge both sides of the ball when they went to 11-on-11 drills, because they weren’t run at full speed. That said, a simulated drive went heavily in the offense’s favor after kicking off with crossing routes to St. Brown and Raymond went for 23 and 17 yards, respectively. Notably: on this drive, we saw a couple more snaps of two running back sets that were… let’s just say interesting and mostly successful. They capped the drive with a 33-yard field goal.
Their second 75% speed drive—which started at the opponent’s 40-yard line—ended in a touchdown. Jared Goff hit Jameson Williams on a 30+ yard touchdown pass after the receiver beat Kerby Joseph for the big gain.
That said, the defense ended practice by getting the better of the offense in a situational drill. The situation:
On the first play, Tyleik Williams came crashing in untouched, forcing Goff to get rid of the ball quickly—which was nearly intercepted by Aidan Hutchinson. After a curl to St. Brown for 6 yards and an overthrow to LaPorta, the Lions faced a fourth-and-4. Instead of trying a 62-yard field goal to tie it, they...
