His second NFL season was over before it started, and Ennis Rakestraw Jr. was down in the dumps again.
After a promising start to his rookie season in 2024, Rakestraw pulled a hamstring in warmups before he was scheduled to make his first career start in a Week 2 game against the Tampa Bay Buccaneers.
He spent time on injured reserve and never cracked the playing rotation upon his return, and when training camp opened last summer, Rakestraw was determined to make up for lost time and silence the critics who were calling him injury prone.
Then he got hurt in the first practice of camp on a freak collision with Isaac TeSlaa before pads came on. He bruised his chest and ribs, sat out most of the next two weeks, then aggravated the injury in the Lions’
Hall of Fame Game preseason opener against the Los Angeles Chargers.
Three days later, Rakestraw was back on the practice field trying to wrangle Tom Kennedy to the ground in a tackling drill when his shoulder popped out of place.
He needed surgery. His season was over. He could feel the haters filling up his social media mentions again.
But as Rakestraw started his rehab with an eye on a fresh start in 2026, he found a silver lining in the downtime he wished he didn’t have.
“I had to do something positive,” Rakestraw told the Free Press. “I was going through so much negative stuff with this and people calling me this and all that. ... Since I’m out the whole year, I decided to graduate, got my degree, so really it was a blessing in disguise because now I don’t have to go back to school.”
With the help of Detroit Lions player engagement directors Jessica Gray and Sean Pugh, Rakestraw landed an internship with Wayne State’s athletic department to complete the final requirement he needed to finish his degree in parks, recreation, sport and tourism, with an emphasis in sports management, from the University of Missouri.
For much of the fall, he spent his mornings in Allen Park rehabbing and taking part in team meetings, and his afternoons and evenings shadowing Wayne State assistant athletic director for corporate sponsorships and alumni relations Gerald Williams-Taylor.
He sat in on marketing meetings and took part in sponsorship drives. He helped run Wayne State’s premium in-game football tailgate and shared ideas on how to create more meaningful engagement between the school’s athletes and fans. The athletic department implemented one of his ideas at its annual golf outing this week, getting more current student-athletes involved in the event.
Rakestraw worked a few days a week, several hours a day – he needed 400 hours total to complete his degree - and after his internship was over, he continued to reach out to Williams-Taylor to see how he could help.
“Everybody loved him, not because he’s an NFL player but because he came and was so humble about it all and he wanted to learn everything about everybody and their roles,” Williams-Taylor said. “That’s something that you appreciate. You try to get that out of just the everyday person, someone that’s coming to work, but with him already having his profession, he still was like, ‘I’m an open book, I want to learn, I want to be able to provide and help,’ so it was great to have him.”
When Rakestraw graduated last December, he returned to Missouri to walk and get his diploma, fulfilling a promise he made to his mother when he left school for the 2024 draft.
He posted a picture on Instagram at the time with the caption, “They say where I come from this would never happen.. I guess they haven’t met E.” And he said the whole experience – getting his degree, finishing his internship, making meaningful contributions off the football field while learning skills he hopes to use later in life – helped him find purpose in an otherwise difficult fall that should set him up for success this year.
“Mentally it's kind of demoralizing because of all the work I put in and the OTAs and veteran minicamp I had last year was pretty solid, and I was so excited, and then something unfortunate happened with me running into TeSlaa and then messing up everything,” he said. “But I just stay sane, man. A lot of people don’t understand, this is part of the game, it’s just sad I got to go through it. But I’m just going to keep prospering and live by my tattoo, God gives his toughest battles to his strongest soldiers, so that’s what I live by.”
As disappointing as his first two seasons have been, the Lions are counting on Rakestraw, their second-round pick in 2024, to play a significant role on defense this fall.
He’ll have a prominent place on the two-deep when the Lions hold their first practice of training camp this morning and is expected to compete with veteran Rock Ya-Sin for the starting outside cornerback job opposite D.J. Reed.
The Lions cut projected starter Terrion Arnold, their first-round pick in the 2024 draft, this summer after he was charged with eight felony counts of armed robbery and kidnapping. Rakestraw and Ya-Sin split first-team reps this spring while Arnold was rehabbing from shoulder surgery.
“The role is there for him if he can stay healthy,” Lions defensive pass game coordinator Deshea Townsend said. “But his body has changed. You can see physically how much mass and strength he’s put in the shoulder and neck area, which is important. Just staying healthy, that’s going to be big for him.”
Rakestraw said he added about five pounds of muscle this offseason with workouts tailored to add bulk to his upper body.
He plans to play this fall in the 192-194-pound range after playing around 188 pounds the past two years.
“To be honest, it really was a freakish accident [last year],” Rakestraw said. “We just ran into each other, not paying attention. It’s like getting hit by a car without knowing. … It just happened with no pads on. And I got the worst of it.
“I’m building it up, though. I’ve built up the durability, eating right, feeling right, so I feel good.”
Mentally, Rakestraw said he feels good, too.
He’s played just 46 defense snaps so far in the NFL, all as a rookie, but said he’s optimistic about staying healthy for the first time in his career.
“Obviously, you never know, but I feel like me personally, it’s over,” Rakestraw said. “I feel like God gave me everything that I can handle and right now it’s time for me to go shine cause my back against the wall and I always did good when my back against the wall so time to see what I’m about again.”
Dave Birkett covers the Lions for the Detroit Free Press. Contact him at dbirkett@freepress.com. Follow him on Bluesky, X and Instagram at @davebirkett.
This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: How Lions CB Ennis Rakestraw Jr. found peace in a lost season
