As we pointed out last week, it is dangerous to draw any sweeping conclusions from spring practices. The padless practices on the field provide only small insights into a player’s skill level and the team’s plans for the upcoming season.
That said, after a full month of media sessions with rookies, veterans, and just about every single coach on staff, a fuller picture of the team has come into focus since the NFL Draft.
So here are 10 things we learned from Lions OTAs, minicamp, and press conferences.
Brian Branch heading towards a lot of safety snaps
Dan Campbell noted during the owners meetings that Branch would be getting more looks at safety this year, but the scope of that was unknown. While Branch didn’t participate in spring practices due to an injury, all indications are that he’s going to have a pretty significant role on the back-end.
“Last year they were a little more hesitant with BB to just kinda fix him at one spot,” defensive assistant/safeties coach Jim O’Neil said last week. “Whereas now that he’s going into Year 2, I think we’ll be more aggressive with him. He’s the type of player you want to see out there on all three downs. So we’re going to push him to that.”
O’Neil admitted that they will “figure out” what’s best for Branch in training camp, but with Branch spending the spring at the facility and dedicating his time to learning the position in the classroom, don’t be surprised if his primary role is at safety in 2024.
Hendon Hooker still has a long ways to go
If you thought that Hooker would enter his second year—but his first offseason program—and easily step into the backup role, you may need to temper expectations. Hooker struggled for much of OTAs, which should not be all that surprising given how much development his game was going to need from his days at Tennessee.
The good news is that Hooker is improving, and passing game coordinator Tanner Engstrand gave some important context to his struggles, particularly as it relates to some of the hesitancy and slow progressions.
“He comes from a different system at Tennessee in college where really he was almost standing still—almost like sitting in cement at times where there was no movement going on and he’s just waiting,” Engstrand said. “Where now, things are in rhythm, in timing, the routes should be coming open at a specific time in his drop and the ball needs to be thrown at those times. So for him to really have that where he’s not having to think about what drop I’m taking, it’s just naturally flowing. ‘I’m in this drop, this is the concept,’ and we can get rid of the ball on time and in rhythm. So I think just as that becomes second nature to him, you’ll continue to see the improvement there.”
Once the footwork becomes second nature, hopefully we’ll see some of the timing and decision making speed up for him.
Sione Vaki could have an offensive role in 2024
With Jahmyr Gibbs sidelined this spring, Vaki was treated as the team’s RB3—which already shows a significant amount of faith in the rookie running back. Those early reps with the first and second team are extremely valuable, even if it’s without pads.
Vaki was one of the most impressive new players at minicamp, but nothing makes me more confident about his potential than this story about Vaki’s ability to learn quickly via running backs coach Scottie Montgomery from between the NFL Combine and his pre-draft visit in Detroit.
“When he came into the building, he had maybe watched all of our tape, just about 80 percent of our schemes, and he had personally drew all of them out vs. different coverages, vs. different fronts,” Montgomery said. “He didn’t know the name of it, he just knew the technical name of it. So when he sat down, he had this folder, and he just started opening it and flipped it and said, ‘Coach you guys run this, right? Okay, yeah, against Las Vegas. Okay, that was against…’ It just was… it was refreshing to see an old school mentality of just doing the work.”
The question is whether Vaki can make enough early progress to jump Craig Reynolds on the depth chart—and my first impression is clearly a yes.
WR3 job wide open
I came into the spring hoping to get some clarity on who will be Detroit’s primary receiver behind Amon-Ra St. Brown and Jameson Williams. I got nothing of that sort in the handful of practices I saw. While Antoine Green appeared to get the most reps with the starters, neither him nor Donovan Peoples-Jones moved the needle much in either direction. In fact, if anyone emerged as a potential favorite for the biggest role amongst the reserves, it was the reliable Kalif Raymond.
Levi Onwuzurike still has a legitimate shot to make an impact
Onwuzurike got plenty of time with the starters in the spring. That alone doesn’t prove much, but the coaching staff is certainly talking him up in a way that sounds genuine.
“Levi is having a really good spring,” coach Dan Campbell said. “(Josh) Paschal is too but Levi—because where he’s come from and all he’s had to deal with, I mean, this guy just has continued to rehab, he’s continued to train his body and work, he’s put on weight because his back can handle it now, we got him through last year to where he’s able to bank some reps and he’s having a really good spring,”
Even linebackers coach Kelvin Sheppard went out of his way to compliment Onwuzurike.
“Levi Onwuzurike is another D-lineman I want to shout out,” Sheppard said. “A guy that’s worked through injury and he’s really progressing, a guy that we’re excited to play behind this year as well.”
With youngsters Brodric Martin, Josh Paschal, and Mekhi Wingo, there will be a ton of competition for Onwuzurike, but if he can show up in the summer and continue this performance with the pads on, Onwuzurike could still have something left in him.
Kicker competition heating up
I went into camp expecting Michael Badgley to be the unquestioned kicker for the Lions in 2024. Now there are two complications for the incumbent kicker. The first is that undrafted rookie James Turner flashed some serious power and relative accuracy during camp. Then there’s the fact that the Lions are expected to sign UFL kicker Jake Bates to a two-year deal.
It’s unclear if all three kickers will make it to training camp, but either way, there is clearly a very real kicker competition on the horizon.
Cornerback room improvements seem real
I’m using passive language here only because I felt similarly last year, and we all saw how that worked out.
That said, I came away from OTAs extremely impressed by both Carlton Davis and Terrion Arnold. Detroit is also still very high on Emmanuel Moseley, who we should expect to see at the start of training camp. Even Amik Robertson held his own against the likes on Amon-Ra St. Brown and Sam LaPorta at the nickel position.
And beyond looking good, these players also seem like a much more natural fit to what the Lions want to be: a press, man-coverage secondary that will be overly physical.
“I love the DBs that we brought in because it just takes it up another whole level, especially with Carlton and his length,” wide receivers coach Antwaan Randle El said. “He’s not a guy you can just one step, you really got to move him off his spot to get going. That takes time for the wide receivers, but you’ve got to have the strength to be able to do it. They’ve been able to do that so far, really all of them have against him. He’s been challenging them over and over again, so it’s great.”
Jack Campbell poised for biggest Year 2 jump
Campbell benefited from Alex Anzalone skipping most voluntary OTAs, as he got to take command of the defense as the “green dot” play caller. During practices that I saw, he almost took every single first-team rep as the MIKE linebacker. He tallied two interceptions in a single practice, and Sheppard—who doesn’t give out blind praise—was legitimately excited for the progress Campbell has already made this offseason.
“He’s exceeded my expectations which were already high,” Sheppard said. “But he’s come back further along than where I expected, because you don’t have meetings during the gap from the last game to now and really those guys with the length of the season, him coming off a rookie campaign and all that stuff, typically you see those guys take a chunk of time off and come in kinda still raw, but this player you could tell dove right back into even-toed and took minimal time off.”
Don’t expect to see Giovanni Manu in 2024
I had very little expectations for Giovanni Manu’s rookie season because the Lions have made it clear from the jump that this is a long-term project. And after seeing him rep with the third-team defense at left tackle, it’s clear they are sticking with that plan. It’s hard to assess Manu’s play without pads on, but the way Detroit continues to talk about him, it’s clear that if he sees the field in 2024, something has likely gone very wrong.
“He is swimming, but we expected him to be swimming,” Dan Campbell said. “We fully expected this to get worse before it ever gets better. He’s trying to find his way. We’re back to the basics of how you get into a stance properly, where your weight goes, when you get out of a stance, where your help is, certainly the scheme, the MIKE, working with others, working with the tight end in this combination, working with the guard, pass and twist—he’s just in the infant stages of here we go. We’re literally working from the ground up, and we knew it was going to be that way. “
Jameson Williams has significantly improved, but needs to grow more
When Dan Campbell kicked off OTA press conferences by saying that Jameson Williams was the most improved player during the offseason program, I was admittedly pretty excited to see that for myself. And early on, Williams didn’t disappoint. His route tree looked broadened, he was more crisp in his routes, and he had clearly improved at tracking the ball.
But there are still plenty of kinks to work out before he gets to where he needs to be. There’s still very noticeable inconsistency in his hands and his chemistry with Jared Goff. Hopefully, those things continue to get ironed out when the team returns for training camp in a month.
