With a little over three weeks to go before they open the regular season against the New Orleans Saints, the Detroit Lions appear to be closing in on a starting offensive line.
The same can’t be said for their secondary.
Lions coach Dan Campbell said this week he feels more urgency to settle the remaining position battles on his offensive front than he does in the back of his defense.
Those two position groups were the biggest question marks coming into the summer, and how they fare this fall while navigating injuries will go a long way toward determining whether the Lions make it back to the playoffs or not.
“I feel like there's more flexibility in the secondary than the O-line right now,” Campbell said. “It may take a little less time and work.”
Continuity up front, or the lack thereof, was a contributing factor to the Lions’ mediocrity last season. Veteran linemen Taylor Decker and Graham Glasgow missed games and practice time with injuries, and Tate Ratledge – after changing positions three days into camp – and Christian Mahogany were in their first years starting at guard.
The Lions cut Decker and Glasgow this offseason and have spent the summer mostly repping the group they expect to be the moat around Jared Goff this fall.
Penei Sewell and rookie first-round pick Blake Miller have taken virtually every first-team rep at the tackle spots. Ratledge, save for one just-in-case practice where he got work at all three interior line spots, has practiced exclusively at right guard. Mahogany has taken the vast majority of the first-team reps at left guard since passing his physical in late July. And the Lions have loaded Juice Scruggs up on reps at center since Cade Mays was lost for the start of the regular season to a wrist injury.
Ratledge and Seth McLaughlin still could be options at center, at least until Mays returns, and Campbell said Ben Bartch remains in the mix to start at left guard.
But he also acknowledged the reality that a line needs to work together, repeatedly, to be at its best.
“O-line, just kind of mentioned this, it would take time,” Campbell said. “It would take reps, it would take time. You'd be pushing Tate in, then you've got to find your guards, and then they've got to work together. So, it's a little bit of that.”
Time is quickly running out on the preseason, which limits how much tinkering the Lions can do on their offensive front and still feel good about the group to start the regular season.
They have two practices and a preseason game against the Washington Commanders left this week, three practices and a game against the Indianapolis Colts next week, then camp breaks and it’s on to New Orleans.
They could play Ratledge at center and use Bartch and Mahogany at guard, but that’s a lot of moving parts to situate in a short period of time, at a place in the preseason where the focus turns to the battle for some back-end roster spots.
It’d be a surprise at this point if the Lions didn’t start Sewell, Mahogany, Scruggs, Ratledge and Miller across their front, with Ratledge ready to step in at center if needed in a game, Bartch the top interior backup and Larry Borom playing as the swing tackle.
That would give the Lions the second-youngest starting line in the league, per ESPN, cause the least amount of shuffling when Mays returns hopefully in October, and set the organization up for the most success now and in the future (given both tackles and both guards, plus Mays, are under contract through at least 2027).
In the secondary, cohesion also is a thing, though not nearly to the level of the offensive line, and the Lions have spent the summer shuffling personnel on a near daily basis.
D.J. Reed, Rock Ya-Sin, Ennis Rakestraw and Nick Whiteside have all taken first-team reps at cornerback. Chuck Clark, Avonte Maddox and Thomas Harper are splitting time at safety. And the Lions have used Christian Izien, Roger McCreary, Keith Abney and Rakestraw in the slot.
That’s a dizzying array of options, even if frontrunners have emerged at most positions. Reed and Ya-Sin have been the Lions’ most consistent outside cornerbacks in camp. Whichever two safeties win jobs are placeholders until Brian Branch and Kerby Joseph return. And the biggest position battle left to sort out is who starts at nickel.
Campbell said the Lions’ summer rotation at slot cornerback is about piecing together the right skill sets to fill the job’s many needs at various points in a game.
“We’re giving them all an opportunity, and we use nickels for different jobs here depending on what the situation is,” Campbell said. “So that’s some of it. It's also, man, who's your best cover guy? Who's your best in-the-box player? Who's your best blitzer? And who's your best processor, the guy who's going to put out fires for you, is just headsy, gets it? So I think that's why we're rotating a lot of guys. We're trying to figure out really who can do what.”
The time to figure it out is now, by competing against Amon-Ra St. Brown, Jameson Williams, Sam LaPorta and Goff.
As the preseason winds down, the Lions have only a few starting spots up for grabs, and maybe not as many as it even seems. The opener is around the corner, and the offensive line the Lions will rely on in that game is nearly set, with the secondary soon to follow.
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: Ready or not, Lions O-line is taking shape. But what about secondary?
