Another NFL training camp is in the books.
This was my 17th camp covering the Detroit Lions for the Detroit Free Press, and my best recollection is I’ve covered parts of three other camps in my career.
I was a student reporter at Michigan State working for the Lansing State Journal when I covered my first camp at Saginaw Valley State sometime in the late 1990s, and I covered parts of two camps a decade later for The Oakland Press in 2007-08.
I remember when Calvin Johnson signed his contract a few days into camp in 2007, Ndamukong Suh’s holdout at the start of my first camp with the Freep in 2010, and the old ice tubs players used to soak in outside the dining hall at SVSU.
Most of the 20 or so camps I’ve covered blend together. There’s optimism
for the upcoming season, breakout players who fizzle out come fall, and training camp fights and joint practices and injuries that derail years.
My biggest takeaways from this year’s camp are how good Aidan Hutchinson and the pass rush have looked most of summer, the emergence of Jameson Williams and to a lesser extent Ahmed Hassanein as players, and the sheer amount of intense, competitive team periods Lions coach Dan Campbell put his troops through this summer.
I can’t say for certain it was more than past years, though with no joint practices for the first time since 2021, I think that’s probably the case. Campbell and Lions assistant head coach Scottie Montgomery shared similar thoughts when I asked them for their lasting impressions of this year’s training camp.
“I love the competitiveness,” Campbell said. “We always get after it pretty good, but I think us getting back to it's just Detroit vs. Detroit. The no joint practices, I just think we got a lot of good stuff done. We got through full installs, man. We got to hit every situation multiple times. And so, when you're able to do that, then you can really get pretty advanced with each other and test each other pretty good.
“I think the competitiveness has been really good, man. And I like the talent that we have. We got a lot of football players right now on this roster and you can't help but get better.”
Campbell mentioned second-year right guard Tate Ratledge as someone who’s “had a really good camp,” and Montgomery, who doubles as the Lions receivers coach, brought up Ratledge’s name, too.
“The elevation of Jameson Williams as a total player, and the connection that he has with the guy that’s worked with,” Montgomery said. “So him and JG [Jared Goff] kind of looking at that, that’s been really big. And then the other thing for me is I think defensively, man, we’ve grown in a lot of spots. We’ve gelled I think in this defense. I think Kelvin Sheppard has done a fantastic job of just getting our guys to all be on the same exact page. And then the guy that I’ve really liked in this camp, too, hope he can handle this is, I’ve really liked Tate Ratledge. I think he’s grown a lot from last year to this year. Really impressed with where he was in the offseason, he’s worked his butt off. I’m proud of him.”
Ratledge’s emergence would be huge for one of the NFL’s youngest offensive lines, and we’ll start to find out in a little over two weeks just how real it is.
Until then, here’s one final batch of observations for the summer from a nearly two-hour practice that was heavy on work for the first-team offense and defense.
Good day for Jared Goff
Goff and the Lions’ first-team offense finished camp on a positive note, scoring on four of their eight drives (three touchdowns and one field goal) and having another end with a long missed field goal.
The offense opened practice with a 14-play, 99-yard touchdown drive highlighted by three Goff-to-Williams connections.
Williams made a leaping 21-yard catch against Rock Ya-Sin down the sideline on the first play from scrimmage and turned a screen pass into a 14-yard gain to convert a third-and-12 later in the series.
The defense nearly got off the field with some good work in the red zone. Amon-Ra St. Brown had a short catch on third-and-goal from the 9, Tyler Lacy followed with a run stuff on Jahmyr Gibbs for a short gain and Avonte Maddox broke up a pass to Sam LaPorta in the end zone, but Goff threw a laser to Williams in the back of the end zone on fourth-and-goal from the 5 for a touchdown.
Williams caught the pass inches from the end line with D.J. Reed in tight coverage. The play was close enough that Campbell asked me if it was a touchdown or not. I signaled it was as Chuck Clark was trying to check video of the play with the Lions web team claiming the catch was bobbled.
The catch looked good on the still shots on the sideline, outgoing president Rod Wood gave the touchdown signal as well, and Lions quarterbacks coach Mark Brunell said I got the call right after practice, though some on the defense might still disagree. Either way, it was a heck of a throw by Goff and great body control by Williams.
Luke Altmyer ahead of Josh Dobbs
Luke Altmyer continued to take second-team reps ahead of Josh Dobbs as the battle for the backup quarterback job extends into the weekend.
Altmyer’s first drive ended after six plays on a sack, when Devin White ran through a block from Sione Vaki, but he was on the field for the only points scored by the second-team offense.
In a series that started at the plus-40-yard line, Trayveon Williams broke a 31-yard touchdown run when Ekow Boye-Doe lost outside contain after a 6-yard Altmyer pass to Jackson Meeks and a short run by Jacob Saylors.
Dobbs took sacks by Eric O’Neill and Anthony Lucas on his first series – Hassanein nearly had a sack on the series, too – and went four-and-out on his second drive. Khalil Dorsey broke up a pass to Malik Cunningham on the drive.
Snap, hold, kick
Altmyer and Mason Miller had two muffed center-quarterback exchanges in a three-play span on the only other drive by the second-team offense, prompting Campbell to step in the huddle and address the issue with players.
Altmyer made the most of the first muff, picking the ball immediately off the ground, rolling to his right and completing a short pass to Tay Martin that went for 10 yards and a first down.
The second muff followed a run that went nowhere and left the offense in third-and-13. Altmyer threw incomplete on third down, and Jake Bates came on to try a 71-yard field that he kicked short and to the left.
Bates attempted a 63-yard field goal three series later that was wide right.
Jahmyr Gibbs rules
The first-team offense failed to pick up a first down on its second drive. Tyleik Williams deflected a pass at the line of scrimmage and someone – it might have been Gibbs – was called for a holding penalty to negate a third-down completion to Williams that left the offense in third-and-20.
But Gibbs redeemed himself for the penalty two plays into the first-team offense’s next series, when he broke a 59-yard touchdown run up the middle one snap after a Goff completion to TeSlaa.
St. Brown beat Ya-Sin for a 16-yard touchdown near the end of practice on a drive that started at the plus-40-yard line, but Campbell called his team together after the drive and had the first-team offense and defense finish practice with a full-contact situational overtime series.
The offense started at the plus-25-yard-line, down 23-20, with 1:38 on the clock and two timeouts.
Goff threw short to LaPorta for a 3-yard gain on the first play from scrimmage – Derrick Barnes made a nice tackle on the play – and Gibbs followed with a 6-yard run. On third-and-1, St. Brown beat Roger McCreary on a corner route for what appeared to be the game-winning touchdown, but Lions general manager Brad Holmes and special assistant Chris Spielman, standing under the goal post, waved the catch incomplete.
On fourth-and-1 from the 16 with 25 seconds on the clock, Gibbs took a quick pitch left and followed a Penei Sewell block into the end zone for the score.
Lions injuries: Participation report at practice
Derrick Moore, Thomas Harper, Trevor Nowaske and Christian Izien sat out practice with injuries Thursday. McCreary and Abney split first-team reps at slot cornerback in Izien’s absence, and White and Malcolm Rodriguez both took first-team reps at the weak-side linebacker spot.
Martin joined Dorsey on the No. 1 punt team at gunner and worked on the top kickoff team. I think Martin is the favorite for the No. 5 receiver spot because of his special teams ability.
And the Lions appear set with their starting offensive and defensive lines heading into the regular season. Sewell, Ratledge, Christian Mahogany, Juice Scruggs and Blake Miller should start on the offensive line for the Lions, and Hutchinson, Alim McNeill, Tyleik Williams and Lacy are the Lions’ base starters on the defensive line, with D.J. Wonnum replacing Lacy in pass rush situations.
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: Lions observations: Intrasquad scrimmage, breakout coming for Tate Ratledge?
