Pride of Detroit
Tuesday was the Detroit Lions’ final day of training camp against each other. On Thursday, they will have a single joint practice with the Houston Texans, before Saturday’s preseason finale puts a cap on the offseason. That means players are running out of chances to make their case for the roster. But two undrafted rookies stood out on Day 16 of training camp, which was, essentially a full scrimmage for the team.
Kennelly has slowly worked his way up the depth chart to the point where he’s comfortably with the second team. On Tuesday, he got a little bit of work with the first team, with Kerby Joseph still out and Brian Branch requiring a break for a series or two. He got his nose dirty for a pair of run stops, logged a pass breakup at the line of scrimmage on a blitz, and before the Lions opened up team drills, he ran right around Jahmyr Gibbs during a 1-on-1 pass rushing drill for the simulated sack.
Kennelly continues to rep ahead of Loren Strickland, and if he continues to make plays like this, it will be hard to keep him off the 53-man roster.
The Lions were regularly rotating their defensive line on Tuesday, with Pat O’Connor and Cooper all getting some time with the starters. And the undrafted rookie did not look out of place one bit. In a short period of time, I had him making a nice run stop on David Montgomery after just a 2-yard gain, and then jumping in with the twos and notching a tackle for loss against Sione Vaki just a couple plays later.
Cooper always seems to make at least one play per practice, and while there certainly needs to be more consistency between those plays, his overall versatility and order on the depth chart show that he’s clearly made an impression with the coaching staff. Mekhi Wingo’s return from the Physically Unable to Perform list complicates things for Cooper’s roster chances, but he’s still making a strong case for himself.
While the practice wasn’t a complete scrimmage, they spent a full hour doing drives of varying distances. Here’s a full recap of each drive, with the most notable plays mentioned in each.
Drive 1: 1s vs. 1s – Result: 3-and-out
Pressure from Aidan Hutchinson forced a quick dump-off to David Montgomery, and on third down, tight coverage from Amik Robertson shut down any chance at completion to Jameson Williams.
Drive 2: 2s vs. 2s (Kyle Allen at QB) — Result: 3-and-out
Run stops by Kennelly, and a combination of Roy Lopez and Myles Adams forced a third-and-long. While Allen got the ball out nicely ahead of a blitz on third down, Tom Kennedy’s out route was a good 3 yards short of the first down.
Drive 3: 1s vs. 1s — at own 1-yard line — Result: 3-and-out
This was the...
