It’s been far from perfect through four games played for Lions cornerback Terrion Arnold. He’s dealt with a hand injury and knee injury but that hasn’t kept him off the field for very long. Arnold’s played in 257 defensive snaps and that is 3rd most for the Lions this season.
Through all of that, Arnold has played up and down for the first quarter of the season. He’s allowed 16 receptions for 164 yards and one touchdown. Fortunately, he’s gotten better each week in coverage. The last two weeks, Arnold has been targeted 17 times but he’s only allowed 6 receptions for 65 yards.
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The bigger concern is the penalties that Arnold continues to get called for in these games. Through four games, he’s been called for eight penalties and five of those have been pass interference penalties. For the Lions, it seems evident that they’d rather have a physical defender over a defender that shy’s away from contact and consistently gets lost in space.
When listening to Dan Campbell and the Lions coaching staff, there doesn’t appear to be that much concern about Terrion Arnold. Specifically about the penalties. Every Wednesday, Campbell speaks with 97.1 The Ticket and yesterday, Campbell talked about Arnold. He said, “It’s something we talked about. We had our big practice yesterday, our big first down, full-pad practice. Those are to really work your craft and really hone in your skill, get better at it.”
Campbell continued and said, “there’s gonna be this give and take that goes down if you’re gonna compete with a receiver. Look, it’s a point of emphasis and he’s gonna be fine. He just keeps working through it and he knows what it is, but we need him to continue to compete and challenge on the perimeter.”
Overall, Arnold has been in-phase when playing in coverage. He’s not allowing very big passing windows for quarterbacks and it feels like those windows will become non-existent soon. Sure, he’s got to improve on when and when not to grab a receiver with his hands but as the season continues, it looks like Arnold is only going to get better.