For as long as I can remember, the Detroit Lions have held one of their training camp practices at Ford Field.
The idea has always been to bring practices to more fans — Ford Field’s capacity of about 65,000 dwarfs the Allen Park experience, where 2,500 people can comfortably squeeze in — and give new Lions players and coaches a chance to experience a game day atmosphere at the stadium where they’ll play their home games in the fall.
Players can run out of the tunnel, go through their pre-game routine and figure out the oddities of the stadium; where the play clock is and how the turf feels and everything else they need to know to make Ford Field their own.
Well, the Lions don’t have a Ford Field practice on their schedule this summer. This weekend would have been the ideal time to have one, but WWE’s Summer Slam mega event is in town Saturday and Dan Campbell said he has no plans to take his team downtown before its preseason opener Aug. 11.
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“We’ll just, we’ll shoot from the hip this year and they’ll be fine,” Campbell said. “We’ll go through the whole pre-game, all of that stuff before we have to go out there, we’ll just mimic it here. But no, we won’t do (practice there). They’ll be all right.”
Honestly, I think the Lions are fine staying in Allen Park for the summer. NFL coaches don’t like to leave anything unturned, so I get why Campbell and his predecessors have been practicing at Ford Field. But the Lions held the controlled scrimmage they usually run at Ford Field at Thursday’s practice and it worked out swell.
It wasn’t a tackle-to-the ground practice; the Lions have already done more of that than most NFL teams do all summer. But it was a full-speed workout in pads where the Lions juggled personnel and spent most of the day in what Campbell calls “move-the-ball” situations. In other words, if the offense has a third-and-5 at the opponent 25, it needs to convert a first down or send its field goal team on for a try.
The final score was 53-33, and I don’t have a great explanation for how the defense’s 33 points were tallied. But it was good work across the board and it gave Campbell and his staff plenty to think about when it came to roster decisions.
“Much more in-game situations (than in a typical practice),” Campbell said. “First, second, third and spot the ball where the whistle goes and so this will be good for us, get special teams in the middle, throw in key situations and so we’re good to go.”
The Lions have a walk-through Friday, an off day Sunday and another walk-through Monday before the New York Giants come in for joint practices, so this will be the last robust set of observations until next week.
Offense stalls
The first-team offense opened practice playing against the second-team defense Thursday, and Jared Goff led his group on a long drive that ended in a Savion Smith interception near the goal line.
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Goff’s pass bounced off rookie tight end Sam LaPorta’s hands, with Derrick Barnes in coverage down the seam of the field, and Smith was in the right spot and made a nice play on the ball. I mentioned Smith in Wednesday’s observations. He continues to take second-team safety reps with Ifeatu Melifonwu out with a knee injury, and this is two straight summers he has jumped off the page.
The Lions have good depth at safety, with Kerby Joseph and C.J. Gardner-Johnson working with the first-team Thursday, Tracy Walker playing with the second-team, Brian Branch seeing plenty of slot reps and Will Harris capable of playing the position in a pinch. Still, Smith is a player to keep an eye on the next few weeks.
Linebacker U.
Barnes spent most of Thursday working with the second-team defense, behind Jack Campbell, who (predictably) has ascended to the first-team alongside Alex Anzalone recently. Barnes made a nice fit on a run play on the offense’s third snap from scrimmage and showed up in run defense several other times later in the day.
Malcolm Rodriguez also made a nice play on the opening drive to blow up a bubble screen to Amon-Ra St. Brown. Rodriguez is probably the Lions’ fourth linebacker, though he got reps as a first-team nickel defender Thursday. He still hasn’t lost his ability to quickly diagnose plays.
Defense rests
The second-team offense followed with a series against the first-team defense, and as you’d expect the No. 1 defense dominated the line of scrimmage. Josh Paschal split right guard Kayode Awosika and center Ross Pierschbacher for a sack on the third play, after two short runs, and Charles Harris followed with another sack one snap later when he beat Brock Wright with an inside move.
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It’s no surprise the Lions’ backup pass rush group dominated its second- and third-team offensive lines. The Lions have two full platoons of capable defensive linemen — maybe more — and depth on the offensive front is hard to find.
Alim McNeill, Branch and Romeo Okwara had sacks against backup linemen, Aidan Hutchinson had two against the starting group and Christian Covington was disruptive as an interior defender.
Hutchinson seems especially poised for a big season after his 9.5-sack rookie campaign, and Paschal has been noticeably more disruptive this summer than he was while battling injuries as a rookie. If McNeill’s body transformation has its desired impact and Harris and Okwara can stay healthy, the Lions are a good bet to top their 39 sacks from 2022.
A little early
The Lions had an issue with pre-snap penalties Thursday as they committed at least five false starts, by new tight end Daniel Helm, right tackle Germain Ifedi, running back Jahmyr Gibbs, left tackle Connor Galvin and one that was shared in the second period by Awosika and Obinne Eze.
The good news is most of those penalties were by backups, who in some cases are still getting used to their playing groups. The bad news is Gibbs’ false start came in a situational period at the end of practice, with the offense in a first-and-10 situation, down 30-27, with 32 seconds on the clock. Galvin’s penalty also came deep in the red zone and forced the third-team offense to kick a field goal after being backed up on third-and-3.
Backups to watch
Justin Jackson scored the first offensive touchdown of the day when he got behind Jack Campbell on a wheel route for an easy catch-and-run. Campbell took a poor angle on Jackson out of the backfield, and Jackson outran Gardner-Johnson to the end zone.
One series later, Brady Breeze made a diving interception on a poorly-thrown ball from No. 3 quarterback Adrian Martinez over the middle. Martinez was backpedaling with pressure in his face and was not able to get any mustard on the ball. Martinez missed a wide open Maurice Alexander a few plays earlier, on a bootleg play where Breeze appeared to abandon his deep post. If Martinez could have set his feet, it would have been an easy touchdown. He checked the ball down instead.
Ones vs. ones
Hutchinson opened the first ones vs. ones team period of the day by spinning off a block from St. Brown for an easy sack on Goff. Obviously, that wasn’t ideal play design, but Hutchinson did a good job recognizing Goff’s bootleg fake. He beat Pro Bowl tackle Penei Sewell two plays later for his second sack.
Charles Harris held the edge on a Montgomery run on the next play, forcing the running back inside to Brodric Martin, who has been disruptive all camp. Cam Sutton broke up a pass to Marvin Jones on the same series, and Goff overthrew a deep ball to Kalif Raymond, who couldn’t separate from Jerry Jacobs in coverage.
The first-team offense eventually moved the ball inside the 10, when Harris made another good run play as an edge defender and Anzalone came up with either a drive-ending pick or PBU in the end zone. Anzalone made a nice recovery to dive back for a Goff pass to Jones on the goal line. It looked like a pick on first glance to me, but Jones waved it incomplete, and it didn’t matter anyway since it was fourth-and-goal.
Up front
Pro Bowl center Frank Ragnow remains out on new-dad duty, so Graham Glasgow started at center and Halapoulivaati Vaitai played right guard with the first-team offensive line. But the Lions limited Vaitai’s workload, which gave Pierschbacher (at center) and fifth-round pick Colby Sorsdal (at guard) a chance to play with the first team.
Sorsdal said those were his first live first-team reps of the summer, and he didn’t look out of place at all. He had a nice block on Martin to give Gibbs room to bounce outside and stymied Martin on a pass rush a few snaps later.
Second-year tight end James Mitchell was another young player who showed up as a blocker Thursday. Mitchell, a fifth-round pick in 2022 out of Virginia Tech, picked up a safety blitz to give Goff time to complete a slant to St. Brown and opened a hole for Jackson on a nice run later in practice.
Quick hits
∎ St. Brown (from Goff), Jason Cabinda (from Goff) and Dylan Drummond caught touchdown passes Saturday. St. Brown had the best catch of the day, catch a perfectly-placed worm-burner from Goff to beat Chase Lucas on a third-and-goal from the 5. Drummond, who has made a strong bid for a practice squad spot at a minimum this summer, beat Sutton for his TD when the Lions moved to red zone move-it periods later in practice.
∎ Cornerback Jarren Williams left practice Thursday with what appeared to be a right leg injury after he stumbled trying to catch Alexander. Williams is a long shot to make the roster, but he spent time on the Lions’ practice squad last fall.
∎ In actual situational periods, the offense went 3-for-3 in scoring, though the defense did its job on two of the occasions. Trailing 28-20 with the ball on the opposing 37-yard line, 29 seconds on the clock and one timeout, Goff completed back-to-back passes to St. Brown before spiking the ball with 8 seconds on the clock.
With one timeout in his pocket, offensive coordinator Ben Johnson called a run play to David Montgomery that got the Lions in the end zone. The two-point try failed, however, on a Montgomery halfback toss pass.
Sudfeld faced a similar situation with the twos, starting at the same down and distance with trailing, 26-20. He completed a post route to Denzel Mims inside the 5 and threw a touchdown pass to Wright on the next play.
In the final situation of the day, the first-team offense was down three with 32 seconds left, at the opponent 35-yard line. After a false start on the drive’s opening play, Gibbs converted a third-and-4 play, popped up and handed the ball to a Lions’ support-staffer as if he was the official for a quick spot. Goff spiked the ball with 1 second left, and Riley Patterson made a game-tying 33-yard field goal.
∎ Patterson and Parker Romo continued their kicking battle with little separation. Both went 5-for-6 during the field goal period, with Patterson missing wide left from 45 yards at the left hash, and Romo clanging a 53-yarder off the right upright. Both also were perfect in field goal attempts at the end of drives.
Contact Dave Birkett at dbirkett@freepress.com. Follow him on Twitter @davebirkett.