I hope this isn’t another Graham Glasgow situation, but I fear it could be.
Last year, the Detroit Lions made the unconventional decision to take Glasgow, their best offensive guard, off the field for a series every half so they could give backup Kenny Wiggins regular snaps with the starting offensive line.
The rotation started in training camp, and even when Lions coach Matt Patricia claimed there was a legitimate “competition” for the starting jobs, it seemed like your basic training camp exercise to prepare for every scenario possible.
Lo’ and behold, the rotation continued in the regular season, and everyone but the Lions scratched their head and wondered why.
Fast forward to now, a week into training camp, and the Lions are once again taking their best player at a position — safety Tracy Walker — and inexplicably playing him with the second team.
Walker took a handful of first-team reps Sunday, but spent most of practice — and most of this week — manning the free safety spot on the No. 2 defense, behind Duron Harmon and Will Harris.
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“I wouldn’t get caught up on first team, second team, all that stuff right now,” Patricia said when asked about Walker before practice. “We’re trying to practice and do rotations. especially with a very deep safety group. Tracy, Will Harris, obviously Duron, (Jayron) Kearse, C.J. Moore. A lot of times we like to spin the different matchups and the different groups, certainly the packages based on the situations that we’re in. So maybe we’re running some couple different packages from that aspect of it, but everybody’s in competition.”
There’s that word again.
Yes, everyone is in competition, but Walker is the best player in that group. He’s long and rangy, can cover tight ends and play the back end of the secondary and the Lions are a better team with him on the field.
Beyond that, if the Lions envision Walker starting Week 1 against the Chicago Bears, which they should, it would make sense to give him, Harmon (the other presumptive starter at safety) and the rest of the secondary time to gel on the field.
Harmon is a new arrival after his spring trade from the New England Patriots, and the Lions will be starting one or two new cornerbacks this fall in Jeff Okudah and Desmond Trufant.
Harris, a third-round pick last year who had some rough moments as a rookie, needs reps, too. He’s next in line at the position and has lots of developing to do before the Lions can count on him in big games.
But there’s no reason his development should come at the expense of Walker, unless the Lions have something else in mind with their secondary — something that might leave everyone scratching their head like the way they used Glasgow last year.
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More observations from Sunday:
• The Lions were without several key players for most or all of practice, which made for some unusual lineup combinations.
On offense, D’Andre Swift (leg) and Bo Scarbrough (undisclosed) remain out with injuries, and Kerryon Johnson sat out team drills as maintenance for his surgically-repaired right knee. Top receiver Kenny Golladay also was held out of team drills, and neither starting guard, Jonah Jackson nor Joe Dahl, finished practice.
Golladay’s absence led to extending first-team reps for Marvin Hall, while veterans Kenny Wiggins and Oday Aboushi finished practice at guard with the first-team offense.
Defensively, Trufant did not do anything other than individual drills for the third straight practice, which meant Okudah played left cornerback with the starters.
[ Jeff Okudah not picky about taking cues from Matthew Stafford and receivers ]
• Practice ended with a punt-off between Jack Fox and Arryn Siposs, the young legs vying to replace Sam Martin.
Patricia gave each punter three kicks, two directionally and a third they had to land closest to the goal line, and the rest of the 80-man roster was told to pick a side, with the losing side running a lap around both practice fields.
Players got a kick out of the competitive environment, with Fox’s side, which included all three quarterbacks, taunting Siposs’ side with a, “U-S-A” chant before the punters took their positions. Siposs played Australian Rules Football before transitioning to the American game.
Fox had a slightly longer first punt — I don’t know the exact distance, but one Lions staff member appeared to signal 51 yards for Siposs’ kick — as measured by where the ball landed, to the right side of the field.
Siposs had the slightly longer second punt, to the left side of the field.
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Fox went first on the third punt, but kicked his ball in the end zone for a touchback. Siposs followed with a punt that appeared to land inside the 5. Big defensive tackle Danny Shelton was waiting at the goal line and knocked the ball out into the field of play as the rest of the players on Siposs’ side broke out in celebration and everyone else went for a run.
• I don’t know if the punt-off gave Siposs the edge for the real job, but it wouldn’t surprise me to see both players on the Lions’ roster. Obviously, the Lions will keep just one punter, but with an expanded 16-player practice squad and the chance of losing a specialist to a COVID-19 positive right before a game, smart NFL teams will carry a specialist or two on their practice squads.
• One final note on the punt-off: Patricia and his coaches put their players in a lot of competitive situations in practice. We saw that in several periods Sunday when the losing side of the last snap of whatever drill they were running had to do push-ups.
It’s not always the fairest way to judge the winner of a drill — Matthew Stafford threw six straight touchdown passes in a two-receiver route combination goal-line drill early in practice, but the offense had to do push-ups after Tony McRae tipped a Chase Daniel pass away from Geremy Davis on the final snap. The defense looked so out of sorts at one point that when it got its first stop of the drill, defensive coordinator Cory Undlin sarcastically congratulated his unit.
• McRae had a nice practice, breaking up at least three passes, including one in a third-down drill on Jamal Agnew, and playing sticky coverage in the secondary. I don’t foresee Justin Coleman losing playing time at the slot cornerback spot, but McRae is in good shape for a roster spot as Coleman’s backup and a solid special teams player.
• Reggie Ragland had the play of practice Sunday when he made a leaping interception on Stafford in a seven-on-seven drill and returned it probably 90 yards down the sideline for a would-be touchdown.
Jarrad Davis and Coleman were among the players who piled on Ragland in celebration after the score. Ragland said after practice Stafford claimed in the locker room he would have caught the linebacker in a real game, though, naturally, Ragland disputes that.
“You damn skippy I would have (beat him),” Ragland said. “He told me in the locker room he would have caught me, but he wouldn’t have caught me, I’ll tell you that. With some fresh legs on game day, I’m gone.”
• If Ragland’s pick was the play of the day, Marvin Jones’ one-handed catch in one-on-one drills was a close second. He made an impossible catch look easy, reaching behind him with his left hand while running full speed to snag a perfectly thrown ball by Stafford. Okudah had good coverage on the play, but Jones’ catch was something to marvel at.
• In situational work, the first- and second-team offense both managed field goals when Patricia put them in first-and-10 situations at their own 37 in a mock end-of-half scenario. Stafford dug the first-team offense out of a third-and-10 hole with a 13-yard pass to Jesse James, and converted another third down with a quick slant to Hall, who has shown more versatility this camp than he did running go routes all of last season. David Blough led the second-team offense and caught some good fortune when cornerback Mike Ford slipped on a third-and-10 pass to Tom Kennedy. Of course, Agnew dropped a drag route one play earlier that would have gone for a decent gain.
• Monday is an off day for the Lions, so observations will take a brief hiatus.
Contact Dave Birkett at dbirkett@freepress.com. Follow him on Twitter @davebirkett. The Free Press has started a new digital subscription model. Here’s how you can gain access to our most exclusive Lions content.