Year 3 is a big one for Detroit Lions cornerback Terrion Arnold. The 2024 first-round pick has had a tough start to his NFL career, fighting through inconsistent play and injuries. While some are calling it a make-or-break season for the 23-year-old defender, he doesn’t particularly like that term.
“That’s kind of like the narrative that the media puts out on it, but for me, I feel like every year is a make-or-break year,” Arnold said. “Just when you go out there and you have to perform under pressure,
have certain circumstances, players grow every year. So when I go out there and play, I don’t treat it almost as far as it’s a make-or-break year. Every game is a win-or-lose game. Every play, every down, it means something.”
But as Arnold enters the penultimate season on his rookie deal, there are certainly growing expectations and increased impatience coming in from the outside. A first-round pick can only take so long before reaching their full potential.
Unfortunately, fans and media didn’t get a peek into Arnold’s progress this offseason, as he continues to nurse a shoulder injury that ended his season and required multiple surgeries. This spring, he participated only in walkthroughs during OTAs and minicamp, and he estimates his health is around 75-80 percent right now.
His focus is on getting healthy right now. But once training camp starts, Arnold will not just step onto the field and be the assumed starter, like in years past. The Lions are going to make him earn it.
“He’s moving pretty good, all that stuff. So just make sure that you stay on top of that, you’re ready to go for training camp, and then it’s on,” coach Dan Campbell said. “It’s just about competing. We’ve got a lot of good guys in that room and he knows this, he’s got to go earn it.”
Admittedly, that’s something most coaches will say. It’s bad optics to just hand starting jobs to players based on draft status or contract size. But the Lions have held true to that, and Campbell reiterated on Wednesday that they won’t sit around forever to wait for a player to develop if someone is outplaying them or showing more progress. And while Campbell wasn’t necessarily speaking about Arnold, it’s certainly easy to connect those dots.
“There’s always a balance when you get into the season of, there could be a player that’s a tick better. He’s an older player, he’s a veteran player. But if you really feel like a young guy is learning from his mistakes and is growing, not making the same mistake twice and you feel constant growth, at some point it’s time to push him into that position and let him go because, in about four weeks they will be better and then they’ll continue to grow from there,” Campbell said. “If that’s not showing up, I don’t care who those players are, we are not going through it, we’re not going to do it.”
Arnold will have to compete with the likes of draftmate Ennis Rakestraw, Rock Ya-Sin, Khalil Dorsey and Nick Whiteside. And while it may seem like the pressure is mounting for Arnold to prove his worth as a first-round pick, he believes this is the exact kind of situation he flourishes in.
“I feel like when you go out here in the NFL, competition breeds excellence,” Arnold said. “That’s what I was just preaching to the guys. Their job is to go out there and find guys that come into the room to push the guys, and when you go out there and you have environments like that, that’s environments that I thrive in. […] If you don’t have that, or you don’t have coaches who are going out there trying to find guys to replace you, to push you, then it’s not going to get the best out of you.”
Adding to Arnold’s critical offseason is the off-field noise of an incident in Florida involving a robbery and a subsequent kidnapping and robbery. While Arnold has not been implicated or charged with anything, his name has been at the center of the case, including text messages from the alleged perpetrators that invoke his name as a conspirator. Arnold’s attorney has publicly denied any wrongdoings. Arnold, himself, told reporters this week that silence is the best option for him in this instance.
“It’s a time and a place, and even as far as us athletes starting to speak up, there’s always a time and a place and a situation for everything,” Arnold said. “Some things are better left to address, some things are better left unsaid.”
