Tuesday was one of the shortest training camp practices I’ve witnessed in the Dan Campbell era. The Detroit Lions only got in about an hour of work before they decided to call it a day.
There’s a relatively good reason for that. Last week, the Lions went fully padded four times in a row, and on Monday’s practice, they did it again. With only a couple of days until their preseason opener, the goal was to mostly get some work for the starters who will not play on Thursday against the Bengals.
But despite
the short day, we’ve got plenty to talk about. So let’s get into Tuesday observations.
[You can see the latest injury news from practice here.]
Sam LaPorta comes alive
It’s been a relatively slow start to Sam LaPorta’s training camp. Some of that has been by design, as it’s clear he wasn’t getting a full workload in the early days as he continues to feel out his body following back surgery. But he’s also lacked some of the game-changing, play-making ability that was so valuable for this offense for the past three years.
However, he looked like his old self on Tuesday, particularly on the first team drill of the day. LaPorta made back-to-back catches right up the seam. The first went for about 25-30 yards, as he made a twisting, acrobatic back-shoulder catch. The second, he scampered in for a 10-yard touchdown and made it look easy.
He’s now put together a few good days, and it appears the rust is off.
The ups and downs continue for Ennis Rakestraw
Ennis Rakestraw has been sliding down the depth chart as of late, regularly working with the second team, while Nick Whiteside has gotten plenty of first-team work. Campbell called Rakestraw’s camp “up and down” on Monday, and it was more of the same on Tuesday, although I will say I’ve seen progress.
The progress comes in the form of his one-on-ones with Jameson Williams. Early in camp, he’d been competing hard with him, but Williams had won the majority of his reps against him. But on Tuesday, it was Rakestraw who won two of his three reps against Jamo. On the first, Williams tried to do a ton of dancing at the line of scrimmage, and Rakestraw was with him on every step. The second, Rakestraw had him completely blanketed during a red zone snap. In between, however, Williams got a free release on an in-breaker, forcing Rakestraw to grab at his jersey and draw a flag—and give up the pass.
Unfortunately for Rakestraw, the positive plays did not continue once they broke into team drills. He bit on a double move from Malik Cunningham and gave up a 30-yard touchdown on the play, although he was not too far back in coverage.
It’s worth noting that during the final drill of practice, Rakestraw got some looks with the ones—with Rock Ya-Sin on the opposite end and rookie Keith Abney in the nickel—but he also appeared to be in with the third-team defense, so there’s a lot of work to do.
Josh Dobbs makes a strong impression… but can’t finish
Dobbs only appeared briefly in team drills during his second practice with the team, but he made an immediate impression by throwing a 23-yard shot play to Cedrick Wilson up the seam. It was a great catch by Wilson—high-pointing the ball between Joe Bachie and Loren Strickland—but it was also a good ball from Dobbs to put it where only Wilson had a chance at it.
Dobbs worked the ball all the way down to the goal line, but on a third down inside the 10-yard line, the Lions pulled him in favor of Luke Altmyer.
Why? Well, understandably, Dobbs didn’t know any of the team’s red zone plays yet.
“I wanted (in), but (offensive coordinator) Drew (Petzing) said we haven’t even installed red zone, so he didn’t have anything to call,” Dobbs said. “So it’s a little tough once you get to the 6-yard line and you don’t know the red zone plays yet, but I was just like, ‘Just call a fade, and they’ll figure it out.’”
Alas, Altmyer came in, checked down to Greg Dortch, and the offense settled for a short field goal.
Defense decisively wins situational drill
The offense ended practice but was put in a difficult situation:
Down 14-24 with 3:41 left, starting on their own 32-yard line with three timeouts left
It wasn’t a particularly strong performance from the offense. They not only failed, but they were also probably bailed out a few times. After ignoring what probably would’ve been an Alim McNeill sack (on Seth McLaughlin), they couldn’t ignore an Aidan Hutchinson sack on the next play. It appeared then the offense was going to be in a third-and-very-long, but after Jared Goff overshot Sam LaPorta, the defense was called for an unclear penalty, giving the offense a fresh set of downs.
A medium gain from Isaac TeSlaa and a curl to LaPorta put them in field goal range. But Goff misfired again to Brock Wright on third down, and the veteran tight end could not bring in the bobble. Jake Bates drilled the 47-yard field goal to keep hope alive, though.
After the second-team defense got a three-and-out stop on the second-team offense on only run plays, the starting offense recaptured the ball with 1:38 left on their own 20-yard line (after a 68-yard Jack Fox punt). On the first play, Goff bobbled a low snap from McLaughlin, and Avonte Maddox came free on a blitz for the sack. Then after two inefficient plays, the Lions faced a fourth-and-long. Goff made a great back shoulder throw to Williams up the left sideline, but Jamo came down out of bounds after the impressive grab.
The Lions coaching staff opted to count it anyway—refs clearly called him out of bounds—but it wouldn’t matter. After another Aidan Hutchinson sack—his third of the day—Goff threw a desperation ball well behind LaPorta, and Thomas Harper made an impressive drive on the ball for the practice-ending interception.
Miscellaneous
- Another strong day for Whiteside. During 1-on-1s, he locked down Isaac TeSlaa in the red zone and had an incredible one-handed interception lined up against Lucky Jackson.
- Amon-Ra St. Brown had a similarly impressive one-handed grab during one-on-ones with Rock Ya-Sin in coverage, but he just missed out on getting both feet down inbounds.
- Speaking of Ya-Sin, he is clearly the best Lions cornerback right now with D.J. Reed out. He makes every 1-on-1 rep a complete battle.
- Lucky Jackson got some praise during full-team red zone work. On the first play, he inserted in motion and got his nose dirty in the run game. On the very next play, he faked like he was doing the exact same thing, but leaked out into the flats and was wide open for the 2-yard TD grab.
