Sportsnaut
Detroit Lions fans don’t have much to complain about so far in the 2025-26 NFL season after a 4-1 start. Boasting the NFL’s highest-scoring offense, Dan Campbell hasn’t missed Ben Johnson one bit. The defense is a bit of a different story, where Aaron Glenn’s departure has left a mark on a unit that dropped from allowing the NFL’s seventh-fewest points in 2024 to ranking 17th in 2025.
One area in particular that has struggled is the secondary. Detroit’s defense has already allowed 10 passing touchdowns, the ninth-most in football. Of course, the Lions have had some injury concerns too.
Recently, 2024 first-round pick Terrion Arnold suffered a shoulder injury in the Lions’ Week 5 win over the Bengals. There was some initial fear that Arnold would be out for the season, especially after coach Campbell admitted that the 22-year-old would be sidelined for “a long time.”
However, on Tuesday, the Lions got much better news about their young starting cornerback. Arnold went to seek a second opinion, and according to ESPN’s Adam Schefter, the injury is “not as bad as feared.”
In fact, Arnold is now “expected to return sooner than expected, possibly this month.”
If so, it’s a big lift for a Lions defense that needs to see what they have in the young defender. Arnold, who’s started 20 of the 21 games he’s played, has yet to intercept a pass.
He’s also drawing extremely poor grades from Pro Football Focus, ranking 132nd among 169 cornerbacks who have been graded this season. While his short-term absence could lead to better results from others, the Lions seem to prefer having Arnold in the starting lineup.
The good news is, it sounds like they won’t have to wait long for things to return to normal on defense. In the meantime, this group needs to step it up a notch if they want to be as good as last year’s team.
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