“I told those guys, this may have been our only shot. Do I think that? No. Do I believe that? No. However, I know how hard it is to get here. I’m well aware. And it’s gonna be twice as hard to get back to this point next year than it was this year. That’s the reality. And if we don’t have the same hunger and the same work — which is a whole ‘nother thing once we get to the offseason — then we’ve got no shot of getting back here.
“I don’t care how much better we get, or what we add, or [who] we draft.
It’s irrelevant. It’s gonna be tough. Everybody in our division’s gonna be loaded back up. And, you know, you’re not hiding from anybody anymore. Everybody’s gonna want a piece of you. Which is fine, you know.
“So it’s hard. You wanna make the most of every opportunity. We had an opportunity and we couldn’t close it out.”
That’s what Lions head coach Dan Campbell told the media after his team blew a 24-7 first half lead to the San Francisco 49ers in the 2023 NFC Championship game. That 34-31 loss was followed by the Lions’ 15-2 regular-season record in 2024, and their subsequent 45-31 wild-card round bollixing at the hands of Jayden Daniels and the Washington Commanders.
After last season’s 9-8 record and postseason miss, Campbell’s words resonated more clearly than ever. Certainly, injuries had a lot to do with the dropoff…
…but as the Lions head into the 2026 season, what is expected of them?
They have the quarterback in Jared Goff. Jahmyr Gibbs is one of the NFL’s most consistently explosive running backs. There’s a receiver trio in Amon-Ra St. Brown, Jameson Williams, and Isaac TeSlaa that is capable of shredding any defense, and tight end Sam LaPorta is no slouch, either. The offensive line should be good enough. Things are a bit dodgier on defense, as the injury data tells us, but Campbell and his coaches are suddenly dealing with a franchise on the precipice of a “competitive window” discussion sooner than a lot of people imagined.
If these Lions are to transcend the doubts, they’ll need the level best from everybody on the roster — superstars and lesser-known players alike. To that end, I’ve identified three Hidden Gems for the 2026 Lions — one underrated veteran, one underrated free agent. and one underrated draft pick.
Underrated veteran: CB Rock Ya-Sin
A Lions secondary that looked like the class of the NFL not too long ago has all kinds of question marks around it now. Brian Branch’s and Kerby Joseph’s injuries of late have been their own issues, and those issues are not yet resolved. What cornerback Terrion Arnold did to get himself released from the team on June 29 was an entirely different level of problematic; when one’s off-field life intervenes to the tune of four counts of kidnapping and four counts of armed robbery, football really isn’t the point anymore.
Still, defensive coordinator Kelvin Sheppard has to put a defensive backfield out there, which is where veteran cornerback Rock Ya-Sin comes in as he did last season. Arnold missed nine games in 2025 to concussion and shoulder issues, and fellow cornerback D.J. Reed missed six games with a hamstring injury. The Lions had signed Ya-Sin to a $1.17 million contract before the season, and it wasn’t a big deal in the public eye. It was also Ya-Sin’s fifth team in the last five seasons — the 2019 second-round pick of the Indianapolis Colts out of Temple had drifted from Indy to Las Vegas to Baltimore to San Francisco to Detroit since 2021.
But with Arnold and Reed unable to take the field, it was the journeyman Ya-Sin’s time to shine, and he did for the most part,
In Weeks 1-9, Ya-Sin had just 98 coverage snaps, and he allowed 10 catches on 19 targets for 94 yards, 10 yards after the catch, four pass breakups, and an opponent passer rating of 84.1.
Especially with Arnold out, Ya-Sin’s participation increased dramatically. In Weeks 10-18, he had 284 coverage snaps (only Amik Robertson had more among Detroit’s cornerbacks with 287), and Ya-Sin gave up 17 catches on 31 targets for 193 yards, 70 yards after the catch, five pass breakups, and an opponent passer rating of 73.7. Ya-Sin didn’t have an interception last season, but he also allowed only one touchdown on all those targets.
“I want to take the ball away more this season,” Ya-Sin said in March regarding his plans for 2026. “I really thought I left some [plays] on the field last year — some interceptions, some forced fumbles. I want to do a better job of that this year. I want to take the ball away.
“Last year, I was proud that I stepped up when I got the opportunity. I got to do a lot of cool things last year. Match up against a lot of really good receivers, and do things in my career up to that point I hadn’t done yet. That was really cool stepping up when guys got hurt, and [we didn’t take] a step back, or [miss] a beat. I was proud of that.”
It helps that Ya-Sin is a natural press cornerback. Last season, the Lions had at least one cornerback in press coverage on 70% of their snaps, the sixth-highest rate in the NFL. Sheppard had two cornerbacks in press 28% of the time, the league’s fourth-highest rate, and the Lions tied with the Buffalo Bills and the Chicago Bears for the NFL’s highest rate of three cornerbacks in press on a play at 11%.
It’s why Ya-Sin wanted to return. He did so on a one-year, $3.2 million contract, with $1 million guaranteed.
“I was ready to go from those four or five teams I had been on,” he said in March. “Like, when it was time to go, I was happy to go. But this was the first time I really wanted to come back, and I let my agent know that before the season had ended. I’m just glad to be back.
“Certain guys fit better with certain teams, and I feel like I fit better here than I fit with those previous teams.”
Is Ya-Sin the ideal No. 1 cornerback for any NFL defense? Probably not, but beggars can’t be choosers, as they say, and with a secondary in so much doubt, it’s nice to have somebody who has excelled of late in Sheppard’s defense.
Underrated free agent: WR Greg Dortch
The Lions dropped from third in Offensive DVOA under Ben Johnson in 2023 to seventh in 2025 under John Morton, and in 2026, former Arizona Cardinals OC Drew Petzing will be in charge of Detroit’s offense. The one guy Petzing clearly wanted from his Arizona days was receiver/returner Greg Dortch, who signed a $1,402,500 contract to play in the Motor City.
“It was a big reason,” Dortch said of his familiarity with Petzing. “Obviously, just the comfort factor. The trust and the success that I’ve had with him being my OC the three years together. Drew is very smart, and knows exactly how to get people the ball.”
Last season, for the Cardinals, Petzing got the 5-foot-7, 175-pound Dortch the ball for 29 catches on 33 targets for 206 yards and three touchdowns, 15 yards and a touchdown on seven rushing attempts, and Dortch himself took the ball on 30 kick returns for 796 yards (26.5 yards per return), and 16 punt returns for 185 yards (11.6 yards per return). The return game is where Dortch’s addition could pay off the most.
“Did you see some of those returns yesterday?” Campbell asked a reporter on July 31 when queried about how Dortch will help the Lions. “Those drills we had, I love [Lions Special Teams Coordinator Dave] Fipp’s. Man, his return ability really showed up. Certainly, we know what he’s able to do from afar just on tape.
“And so, for him, it’s, where do you fit in at? We’re going to need to be able to use you, rely on you. We feel pretty good so far about the return stuff, but there again, we have got a whole camp to go. We also have three pretty good receivers at the top of this thing that we feel really good about. So, his is finding, ‘Where do I fit into that, and where can I make my mark?’
“I mean, look, we have got plenty of guys that we can give a gadget to. I mean, [Amon-Ra St. Brown] Saint, we can give a gadget. We can give [Jameson Williams] Jamo a gadget. We can give [Jahmyr] Gibbs a gadget. So his is, where is that? What do I do best? Where can I fit into this? And just play receiver. So, we think of him that way. He can play Z, he can play F, and go to work.”
Dortch has the ability to take a screen or a sweep several yards in the right direction, and though he’s not a primary receiver at his size, the Lions don’t need that. As Campbell intimated, they already have several primetime targets for Jared Goff. But Dortch has proven the ability to be a sneaky value addition in the right offense, and Petzing has proven the ability to make that happen.
Underrated draft pick: CB Keith Abney II
Speaking of cornerbacks as we were earlier, there’s the addition of Arizona State’s Keith Abney II, the 6’0”, 190-pound pass defender the Lions took with the 157th overall pick in the fifth round of the 2026 draft.
GM Brad Holmes was pretty happy about that one.
“He was just a simple one because we had him ranked a couple rounds higher than where he was,” Holmes said after the draft. “So that was a no-brainer for us.”
What’s interesting is that the Lions may project Abney as an inside cornerback, despite the fact that in three seasons with the Sun Devils, Abney had just 26 slot snaps.
“I think he can do both,” Holmes said. “I’m not pigeon-holing him or putting him in a box that he’s a nickel only. He’s got enough good tape out there, versus some really good wide receivers, of him playing on the outside But I do think from a projection standpoint, I do think he can play inside as well. I just think that’s a bonus.”
I completely understand why the Lions had Abney set a couple rounds higher than the fifth, because last year’s tape was quite impressive. In 2025, Abney allowed 32 catches on 72 targets for 321 yards, 79 yards after the catch, no touchdowns, two interceptions, nine pass breakups, and an opponent passer rating of 46.1. As a press cornerback, he showed that he can get right up in a receiver’s face, trail the receiver through the route, and make quick passes a thing of the past. Fast closure on those plays has become an Abney hallmark.
Right now, the Lions have Ya-Sin and D.J. Reed as the starting outside cornerbacks in their “Legion of Whom” defense, and though that could and should work pretty well, Abney has the tools to be an early asset with the right reps and opportunities — especially in the secondary where you don’t really know what’s going to happen from minute to minute.
