Updated 53-man roster projection after the Lions 2nd preseason game

With one preseason game left and a little over a week before roster cutdown day, here’s the current projection for how that initial 53-man roster will look for Detroit.

Roster cutdowns around the NFL come in just over a week. The Detroit Lions, like all NFL teams, will have to get down to an initial 53-man roster from the current 90. With just one roster cutdown this year, it builds the dram of who makes it and who does not.

[lawrence-related id=93940]

With one preseason game left and a little over a week before roster cutdown day, here’s the current projection for how that initial 53-man roster will look for Detroit.

Detroit Lions stock report after the second preseason game

Breaking down which Detroit Lions players saw their stocks rise and fall in the second preseason game, a loss to the Jaguars

The second exhibition game for the Detroit Lions ended in a disappointing, punchless 25-7 loss to the visiting Jacksonville Jaguars.

With nearly every player of significance sitting out, it was a chance for the depth players in Detroit to prove themselves. Some looked like bullish risers, while others saw their stocks grow more bearish.

Here are the Lions who rose up and those who fell back in the preseason loss to the Jagaurs.

Lions vs. Jaguars preseason game earns a national broadcast

The NFL Network will broadcast the preseason game between the Detroit Lions and Jacksonville Jaguars

The Detroit Lions and Jacksonville Jaguars are two of the buzziest up-and-coming teams in the NFL entering the 2023 regular season. The intrigue around the two cats is purring loud enough that their exhibition game will now have a national audience.

The NFL Network revealed its broadcast slate for the second week of the preseason, and the catfight in Ford Field on Saturday will be the featured game on the network. Detroit and Jacksonville will get the national treatment for their 1 p.m. ET kickoff. The exhibition game will also be carried on the Detroit Lions preseason affiliate network on both television and radio (check local listings).

[lawrence-related id=94358]

The game did not change on the preseason schedule, just the shift to national coverage. It follows two days of joint practices to be held at the Lions’ training facility in Allen Park on Wednesday and Thursday.

Lions vs. Panthers preseason game earns a prime-time national broadcast

Detroit’s preseason road game against the Carolina Panthers will be broadcast in prime time nationally

[anyclip pubname=”2103″ widgetname=”0016M00002U0B1kQAF_M8036″]

Fans around the country will get an early chance to see the Detroit Lions over the summer. Aside from Dan Campbell’s Lions being featured in the regular season kickoff matchup on Thursday, September 7th in Kansas City, Detroit will also be one of the featured teams in the final week of preseason.

The NFL released the national broadcast schedule for the three weeks of the preseason this week. The Lions’ preseason finale in Charlotte against the Carolina Panthers will be featured in prime time on Friday, August 25th. The game will be broadcast on CBS, with an 8 p.m. ET kickoff.

It will be a good chance for the Lions defense to show its improvement after getting run out of the building by the Panthers in Week 16. The Panthers ran for 320 yards on their way to a 37-23 win that effectively knocked the Lions out of the playoff race.

There are also several connections between the two teams. Duce Staley and Todd Wash both left the Lions coaching staff to join the new regime in Carolina, as did starting WR DJ Chark.

Dan Campbell ‘encouraged’ by CB Jeff Okudah’s play vs. Falcons

Lions head coach Dan Campbell is encouraged by CB Jeff Okudah’s play vs. Falcons in Detroit’s preseason opener

One of the focal points of the summer for the Detroit Lions has been the progress of third-year cornerback Jeff Okudah. After two disappointing seasons riddled with injuries, it’s a big season upcoming for the No. 3 overall pick in the 2020 NFL draft.

So far, so good, according to Lions head coach Dan Campbell. That’s the word from the coach after the first preseason game, a 27-23 loss to the Atlanta Falcons.

“Listen, he did some good things. It was encouraging,” Campbell said Monday. “We came out of this game encouraged with Jeff. It was like, ‘OK, this is pretty good.’ Just to see him get up there and press a little bit, challenge, and then, man, he’s getting involved in some of these tackles, and so I would say we were encouraged.

That’s the best way to say it; it was encouraging.”

Okudah had three tackles (including the pictured one here) on the evening in 18 defensive snaps. He allowed one completion on his only target in coverage, per PFF’s game tracking. Okudah did have one very impressive rep in run defense that didn’t show on his stat sheet too, where he stacked the edge exactly as the Lions want their outside CBs to do

The Lions get a (preseason) primetime game

The Detroit Lions landed a national broadcast for the preseason opener after being blanked from primetime in the regular season

All the uproar over the Detroit Lions being shut out of primetime games in the 2022 NFL schedule might have produced a minor victory for the Lions. Detroit earned itself a national primetime broadcast for its preseason opener.

The league revealed the broadcast schedule and all times and dates for the three preseason games for each team. Detroit opens up hosting the Atlanta Falcons in a game that will be broadcast nationally on the NFL Network.

The preseason opener takes place in Ford Field on Friday, August 12th and kicks off at 6 p.m. ET. It’s not exactly primetime but it’s a national broadcast that indeed extends well into primetime. It allows the rest of the country a chance for a first look at Year 2 of the Dan Campbell Lions.

Lions 3-game preseason schedule set

The Lions open the preseason with a visit from the Atlanta Falcons

In addition to the 2022 regular-season slate of 17 games, the Detroit Lions preseason docket is now revealed. Well, mostly anyway.

The Lions will have three preseason games in August. Only one of the games will be at Ford Field, the preseason opener against the Atlanta Falcons. The exact date and time for the first two exhibition games have yet to be fully determined.

Detroit will take to the road to play the Pittsburgh Steelers and Indianapolis Colts in the final two preseason dates. The finale in Indianapolis will take place on August 28th at 4:30 p.m. ET.

The shift from four games down to three exhibitions coincided with the league expanding the regular-season schedule to 17 games. Because the Lions have nine home dates in the games that count, they only get one preseason matchup in Ford Field.

[listicle id=76943]

Lions preseason: Who and what to watch for in the matchup with the Steelers

Players to watch and things to take note of when the Detroit Lions face the Pittsburgh Steelers in the second preseason game

When the Detroit Lions meet the Pittsburgh Steelers on Saturday, August 21st in Heinz Field, it will be the second preseason game for Dan Campbell’s team. The coach has already ruled out a few key players for the trip to Pittsburgh, but that only creates opportunities to watch other players and facets of the team.

Here are some of the things to focus on when the Lions play the Steelers in the only preseason road game for Detroit in 2021.

Dan Campbell explains the end-of-game clock management in the preseason opener

Campbell’s focus on seeing what his players can do in the situations rightly trumps the final score of a game that doesn’t count

Lions head coach Dan Campbell has taken some pointed criticism for how he handled the clock at the end of Detroit’s preseason opener against Buffalo. The Lions scored on a go-ahead late field goal but left time for the Bills to rally in a two-minute drill for a game-winning field goal.

Campbell explained that winning the meaningless exhibition game was not important. Instead, he wanted to see how certain players could operate in situational football. He addressed the controversy in his Monday press confernece.

“To me, that was about getting (QB David) Blough a couple of throws or see if we could, see if we could score a touchdown in a tight red (zone),” Campbell said. “Ordinarily, would have milked those timeouts out of our opponent. It was kind of one of those – that was my first inclination and I was like, ‘Hey, man, Blough’s going pretty good here, we’re moving the ball a little bit. Let’s see if we can find a way to get it in the end zone or get some throws.’ Certainly, you’d rather not get a throw to where it goes out of bounds, even if you are trying to be more aggressive. That’s on me. That’s not them.”

Campbell continued,

“It was, ‘I’m trying to get a look on these guys,’ all of us. The benefit is if you don’t get it, then your defense is in a two-minute, which is what happened at the end and you get another look at those guys under a high-stress situation, some of those young players. It’s tough because you are, you want to win the game, but you are also trying to evaluate these guys under certain circumstances. That’s really what the focus was, I guess, if you will.”

Campbell’s focus on seeing what his players can do rightly trumps the final score of a game that doesn’t count. And if his defense had come up with the stop in the final minute, many of the critics who are slamming Campbell’s clock management would be praising his strategy for getting a good look at the two-minute defense.

Lions first-team offense leaves an up-and-down first impression

Jared Goff and the new Detroit Lions 1st-team offense had one strong drive and one epic fail of a drive

We got our first look at the new Detroit Lions first-team offense in Friday night’s preseason opener. With Jared Goff at the controls of coordinator Anthony Lynn’s offensive scheme, the starters played two drives that left a very mixed impression.

The first drive was pathetic. Goff threw his first pass directly to a Bills defender, who dropped it. Jamaal Williams got hit at the line of scrimmage on the first run, forcing 3rd-and-long. Rookie right tackle Penei Sewell got smoked by fellow first-round pick Greg Rousseau at the same time as right guard Halapoulivaati Vaitai was walked backward into the QB for a sack where Goff didn’t have much of a chance.

It did get better on the second drive. Goff threw a couple of pretty timing routes, hitting impressive rookie WR Amon-Ra St. Brown on a zippy out and whistling one perfectly on target to big TE Darren Fells for a nice gain. St. Brown showed off with a short catch that turned into a 13-yard gain, too. Alas, it was wiped out by an (iffy) holding penalty on Pro Bowl center Frank Ragnow.

Goff was sharp on the second drive, even though it stalled when he attempted to scramble for the conversion on 3rd-and-10. He completed seven in a row and nearly had a touchdown, denied only when Bills CB Levi Wallace made a nice deflection on a throw in the end zone to Tyrell Williams. A higher throw from Goff to his taller target would have been nice, but it was not a bad effort.

One throw, and play design, really stood out as something we should see a lot, and the NFL Network was kind enough to tweet it out,

Note the route from Jamaal Williams out of the backfield and how he forced the outside CB to come way up to defend it. That bought extra room for Tyrell Williams up the sideline and Goff nicely rifled the ball into the “turkey hole” for a first down. Jamaal Williams is enough of a receiving threat that if the CB cheats back to defend No. 6, Goff can quickly check it to the RB and get him the ball with room to operate.

An 18-play, 75-yard drive that ends in a successful field goal from Randy Bullock is definitely something coach Dan Campbell will take. The drive took almost 10 minutes off the clock and had a nice mix of runs and passes. On the heels of the epic fail that was the first 3-and-out, it creates some hope and offered a glimpse of how the Lions can win on offense in 2021. After that horrifying first drive, it was a nice palate cleanser.