Pride of Detroit
D.J. Reed led an active and impressive Detroit Lions secondary on Day 9 of training camp.
The Detroit Lions returned to the practice field on Sunday a few days removed from their preseason opener against the Los Angeles Chargers. It was back to business and things looked much more in sync than they did in Canton, Ohio on Thursday.
Here are my biggest observations from one of the longer days of training camp so far.
We haven’t talked much about D.J. Reed this camp. Some of that is because Reed has only gotten a few days of work during team drills, some of that is because Terrion Arnold has been stealing the show for the first week of training camp.
But with Arnold sidelined on Sunday as he works back from a hamstring injury, Reed showed why the Lions invested in him this offseason. Working opposite Jameson Williams for much of the 1-on-1 drills, Reed made life hard for the star receiver. While Williams won the first rep between the two on a comeback route where Reed was still in good position, the cornerback went stride-for-stride with Jamo on a deep shot—something that is tough to do.
After practice, Reed talked about shadowing Williams, and noted that people sleep on his speed. His only publicly recorded 40-yard dash time was a 4.51 at the NFL Combine, but Reed claimed he running with a sprained MCL at the time and has regularly ran in the 4.3s. That may be talk, but it certainly looked like the real deal on this particular rep, and during a rep last week when he chased down Jahmyr Gibbs.
But it’s not just Reed impressing among the starting secondary. Amik Robertson also won his rep against Williams, forcing an incomplete pass, and is the only person I’ve seen in camp give Kalif Raymond a run for his money during one-on-ones.
Kerby Joseph stood out during one-on-ones for a completely different reason. Lined up opposite rookie Isaac TeSlaa, he gave the receiver a very aggressive jam that had the rookie stuck in place for several seconds. On the next rep between the two, he did it again, but TeSlaa was able to disengage quicker. Given TeSlaa’s lack of press coverage in college, this certainly seems intentional on the Lions’ part.
Finally, there’s the most consistent defensive back of the last three training camps: Brian Branch. He was dominant again on Sunday. First, he was the only defender who seems to be able to take down Sam LaPorta during individual tackling drills. Thenn during coverage one-on-ones, he had some extremely competitive reps. He was able to stick with Jahmyr Gibbs on a Texas route to force an incompletion. And while he gave up back-to-back completions to Amon-Ra St. Brown, his coverage couldn’t get much better on each play. Jared Goff just dropped perfect balls to his favorite receiver. The Lions were able to get video of both reps:...
