Episode #307: Setting expectations for Lions rookies
01:25:22 Share

Hello everyone and welcome to another episode of the Detroit Lions Breakdown Podcast. I'm Joe Cagna. With me as always is Eric Schlitt from prideofdetroit.com. Eric, I shouldn't say like with me as always because we haven't done a show in roughly a month or so. So when we, when we, it's not always, when we rarely do a show. I tell you, uh, it's been an interesting, uh, month that we haven't done a show. Uh,

There's been, I, I mentioned this on Twitter. Uh, this is, I've had some stuff going on that has, uh, reempted my ability or my availability. Um, had some family stuff I got to take care of. Some of it planned, some of it unplanned. The unplanned, uh, definitely threw me off, uh, for a couple of weeks there. And, um,

we're progressing forward in the right direction. So I know there's a lot of people itching for, for podcast content and, uh, we're doing our best, I promise, but the family stuff, uh, couldn't be avoided and it, uh, it kept me away. So we're getting that settled though. Like, uh, like I said, and, uh, happy to be back. Happy to be talking to you again, Joe. Yeah. Well, it's a pleasure as always. Um,

No better time for it to happen. We did miss OTAs and minicamp. I'm sure that'll get sprinkled in a little bit here and there. That's really not going to be the crux of our discussion today. We're going to talk about the rookies, talk about the expectations of them coming up this season as we barrel towards training camp in the middle of July. I should say middle, late July, six weeks from now, right? Yeah, roughly. Yeah, that sounds about right.

Uh, first up off the bat, let's, let's sit with the, the, the transactions. They're not big transactions or, you know, we usually do injuries transactions at the beginning of shows, uh, number one steel chambers. So we would have been discussing today as part of the lions 2024 UDFA group. He has already been released by the ball club and picked up by the new England Patriots. Um,

I don't know if you want to talk about that or if we'll get to that. People like Steel Chambers. They were looking forward to Steel Chambers and the Honolulu Blue and Silver. Steel Chambers was one of...

the top, I think three players of the undrafted players Alliance had that I think people thought had a chance at the roster. He was the sixth or seventh linebacker heading into, you know, throughout OTAs and minicamp. And it looked like he was in a pretty good spot. The Lions have historically kept six off the ball linebackers. He would have been in contention for that if they were going to keep six again, but,

But with the new special teams rules, we don't know if that's going to be five or six players at the linebacker group. Regardless, though, he seemed like he was in a good spot. And he was also he was paid quite a bit. He got a nice little chunk of change in order to sign 25,000 guaranteed.

Um, no, uh, steel was only, only got around 90, I think. Right. Like 75. Yeah. 90. Yeah. I'm sorry. I was reading the wrong line. I'm looking at it. I say Williams steel chambers is 90 total guaranteed. Yeah. So, um, yeah, 15,000 will be like a cap hit, uh, right now, or actually no, because it's past June 1st. It, it, they'll only take a third of that, but, uh,

Anyway, it'll be a little cap hit for Steel Chambers. They'll have to pay a little bit for him next year, but it's going to be minuscule compared to the grand scheme of things and the value of the salary cap. But regardless, he was a guy we thought was in a good spot, and they elected to move on from him after...

and they signed, or I'm sorry, after minicamp and they signed Ben Neiman in formerly, I think most recently was with the Broncos to replace him. He's been in the league a few years, played linebacker at Iowa. I think it was like a starter for multiple years at Iowa. Again, kind of a heavy special teams guy, but it was, it was a bit surprising to see them move on from steel chambers to

Like you mentioned, the Patriots picked them up almost immediately. And well, they claimed them, right? They had the, for those who, if you're not familiar, the waiver wire is in place now.

And it's still based on last season's record. So the, when a player goes, it's released, they go onto the waiver wire and the Panthers have the first option to try and claim them. Washington has the second option and then the Patriots have the third option. It, and then just keeps going like the draft order. Um,

The Patriots claimed him. So it's possible other teams put a claim in for him as well. But it didn't matter. Patriots had the highest of the pecking order. And and so they land steel chambers. The fact that player 90 essentially, or maybe he was like player 85, but he was cut because he was being replaced by another linebacker. He was the one that was, you know, it was a little easier to let him go.

The fact that that player is already being claimed, I think it speaks to the depth of this team. It's one thing if you have a player that is close to making the 53 and you release them and they get claimed. But it's different when it's like, hey, we got this UDFA and we're going to move on from them in June and then teams are...

actively you know putting waivers in to try and claim him it it speaks i think to to where this roster is and and how it's considerably different than what we've seen in years past so yeah steel chambers uh is a patriot and it's funny like a lot of people um on social media defaulted to oh he's gonna have like a pro bowl career with the patriots yeah well of course

It's how the turntables have turned, right? Very Michael Scott of you. Right. It's...

It wasn't that long ago that every Patriots player that was cut, the Lions were trying to claim. Now, you know, Lions cut a guy and the Patriots are trying to go after him. So it's a little bit of success taking on Lions castoffs. Sure. Sure. They also had the third worst record in the league. So we really can't call them the geniuses anymore. Unless the replacements they have left.

lined up are are the right right folks so we'll see it's just an interesting juxtaposition from where things were just a few years ago when the Patriots were one of those top teams and and the Lions were the ones fighting for scraps and now here we are and those roles have been reversed and it's a good feeling I mean I'd rather be on this end of things than than on the other

All right, so the next player who's no longer on this end of things is cornerback Craig James. He was released with an injury settlement. Okay, so it's a good time to do a little refresher on how injury settlements work. Injury settlements are basically like...

workman's comp, right? Craig James was injured while on, while, while doing his job in Allen park. And so because he was injured and because the lions wanted to just elected to release him with an injury there, they are required to release him with an injury designation. So they're saying we're releasing him, but he's currently injured, was injured at work.

He goes to the waiver wire. Now, typically those players go unclaimed like 99.9% of the time because another team doesn't want to take on an injured player. So when that player passes through waivers, they, because they have it were released with an injury designation, they revert back to the, the original team in this case, the lions, and they go immediately onto the lions injured reserve.

Now, the Lions, once he's back on their roster on injured reserve, the Lions have two options. They can either, A, just keep him on injured reserve, but because he's been placed on injured reserve before the season, his season is over, and they can keep him on the roster, but they've got to pay him his salary, and then they hold his contractual rights a year from now, but they've got to pay him.

The other option and the more common option is that they reach an injury settlement. And what that injury settlement is, is it means that Craig James gets released a second time this time with it, because instead of an injury designation, it's an injury settlement. That means he's being paid like all of his workman's comp money up front. And then he's allowed to become a free agent and go look for her other work.

Now that injury settlement is typically, it's the length of how long he's expected to be injured for times whatever his salary would be for a week. So they're trying to say, okay, if your injury is eight weeks and you're making $1,000 a week, then we're going to pay you $8,000, right? Simple math, but it's more than that, but simple math.

So they reach an injury settlement. They pay him his workman's comp all up front. He becomes a free agent and the Lions don't have to keep him on injury reserve and don't have to pay him his full salary. So that's the stage that they're going to get to. They're probably in that space right now. And that's most likely where he'll be headed. Unless he's like got a torn ACL and he's going to be done for the year, he's probably going to get, he'll probably get an injury settlement.

So when you hear players get released from now up until cutdown in that will be in September.

uh, you have to keep this, these details in mind as a, you know, is a player just released outright? Are they subject to waivers? Are, do they have an injury? Because all of those, uh, designations have different paths for what happens to the player. So I just wanted to touch on that before, uh, you know, just as a nice little refresher and, um,

I think Craig James was probably at the bottom of the cornerbacks room anyways. For those who don't know, he was on the practice squad last year, but he wasn't in a very promising spot where he was competing for a roster spot. He probably would have been competing for a practice squad spot. So injury is unfortunate for him, but hopefully gets compensated.

All right. So you talk about if they would keep, if you know, when he reverts back to the lions after nobody picks them up off waivers and he'd be put on injured reserve, would he get like all, if he was at making the league minimum, get all 800,000 then? Is that how that works? This is going to be a complicated answer. No, no, it's, it's, it's, it's kind of like that. There's usually a, there's usually a clause that reduces that number in half.

so that the Lions don't have to take a full $800,000 cap hit. It usually gets reduced to like 400,000. But if he has an injury that's going to keep him a year, you know, out a year and he's, it doesn't make sense for him to try and go, you know, be a free agent. But if he has an injury, like it's a hamstring injury, then yeah, he'll take some money and go look for another job. Could be beneficial for him. So yeah,

It just really depends on the injury, the length of the injury, what the injury settlement might be. But there's usually clauses in those contracts where if they do end up on IR at this stage, it's at a reduced price. All right. I'm nervous about asking this question now. If they get released with an injury settlement, how much money do they get?

Well, it could be, it just depends, right? Like it's, again, it's, it's based on their injury and their time it would take to come back from it. Yeah. Yeah. So, um, like if he's expected to be out, like I said, a year, they may have to pay him like the, the full prorated salary, which could be upwards of like 400,000, um, or, uh,

If he's out for like eight weeks, it could be like 10,000. Like it just, it is a wide variance depending on what the injury is and you know, how long he's expected to be out. All right. It's not just a check for a hundred. He doesn't walk into Brad Holmes's office and get a check for $124. No, no, no. It's, it's, it's a, it's a, it's a pretty fair amount. All right.

All right, let's talk about the rookies. We'll start right at the top. We're going to go through the draft picks first. Tarion Arnold, cornerback. He's participating in the OTAs and everything. He's going to be wearing number zero. What are our expectations going to be for him this season? So Tarion just signed his contract today, which was nice. That means the whole line. They're all signed up.

And it's ahead of schedule compared to last year. Last year, they didn't get their, didn't get Gibbs or Branch signed until July. So it was nice to see them get that done. One less thing to worry about. But expectations for Arnold, I think, are going to be high. Yes, the Lions, you know, it's a first round pick. And so expectations are that, you know, most for most first round picks that you're going to be in a starting position.

When you pick in the twenties, it's not necessarily, you know, I, I think the expectations diminish a little bit, right. For me, when you pick a guy at 24, like that's where Terry on was, I don't think he's necessarily guaranteed a starting spot or expected necessarily a hundred percent going to start. And for the lions, you know, they make everybody earn it at the same time.

Tarion's skill set combined with his upside, I think, put him in a position where he should be slated to start. And then by the end of camp, we saw him starting a couple of times during OTAs and minicamp. He had some days where he wasn't practicing, but the days that he was, he was in the starting lineup pretty much from the jump. And when you look at Tarion as a player, I think he's most certainly...

expected to start. And, um, even though that, like I said, the draft position doesn't say he's going to, but I think him as a player alludes to that. Right. Um, top cornerback on my board, it's got a good quickness, good, good, uh,

overall speed even though i think he he didn't test as well as he plays like he's he's gonna he's gonna run he runs a lot faster than his 40 time tells you and i think what he said in the detroit free press day yeah i think he said he was dealing with a hamstring or something like that right before the combine so you know rakestraw had the same thing right rakestraw had a uh um a groin injury i think before the combine as well but for arnold i think you can expect him to start

opposite of Carlton Davis and the skillset, the demeanor, the attitude, and the fact that he probably should have went in the teens instead of 24, I think are all really good signs that he's going to come in and expected to be one of the starting outside corners. Now he's going to face some competition. Uh, I meet Robertson, Emmanuel Mosley. Those guys are going to push him. Um,

But I think at the end of the day, Arnold should be the guy who is expected to start. Now, I'm interested to see what you think about this. I'm not expecting him to be like cornerback one. I'm expecting him to be like, like I expect if they want to play matchup football,

I expect Carlton Davis to be the guy that they put on like the top wide, the opponent's top wide receiver. Are you, you agree with that? Or you think Arnold's just going to get like baptism by fire here? No, it'll be Carlton Davis will be the number one corner. I mean, we'll, we'll see, you know, we'll see if Aaron Glenn's hands are tied again. They're gonna be playing loads of zone where there is no like match matchup.

uh, settings for the, the corners. Um, I, they're going to bring them along slowly. It's, it's one, I, it's something that bugs some of the fans about this regime is they do bring players along slowly and don't throw too much at them. Um,

Because the first how many days there's going to be controversy those first few days of training camp because Arnold's going to be on the third team. And everybody's like, oh my gosh, he's on the third team. Like he's never going to play. This is a disaster of traffic. And we know that's part of their whole competition type thing. I would say he will emerge as the number two. They're giving Davis, you know, cornerback one money. He makes more than Sutton made. You know, Sutton was the number one corner last year.

They're going to bring him along. They're not going to put too much on his plate. Unless he's great. Unless that Brian Branch type stuff. But even with Brian Branch, remember they were going to play him using a little of safety. It's like, no, he's only going to play nickel. He's only going to handle these things. I think they're going to do the same thing with Arnold. I...

First, I think they're going to use more man this year than I hope. So that's the plan. But, you know, plans don't always work out. Sure. And Aaron Glenn has changed his defense each of the three seasons. He's been the defensive coordinator. So, yeah.

but I think at his core, Aaron Glenn is a man, uh, scheme. He wants to run that man. Everybody wants to Russ press man. Yeah, sure. Um, and I think that speaks to Carlton's, uh, strengths as well. I think he's a better press man and I think carry on is a better press man. And so those decisions I think were made purposefully to try and add those specific guys. Um, even, even rake straw is a really good press man. Um,

So I'm feeling pretty confident that they're going to come out in man and they're going to start the season expecting to play more man. And I think that'll end up suiting Tarion well. At the same time, it is tough to be a rookie, a corner in the NFL, right? Like the learning curve is real sharp. The receivers that you're facing off against are pretty significant.

Now he did play in the sec. So that's, you know, he's got that going for him, but it's even in the sec, you know, you can be in a situation where you're going to be clearly better than the receiver opposite of you, except for only a couple of times. Tarion is going to be facing guys that are better than him as a rookie, almost on a weekly basis. You know, there's a good chance of that. So it's going to be a lot to learn now.

I do think Tarion has some Brian Branch in him, that ability to progress, that upside. And I think he's learning quickly. So expectations are going to be high. I'm going to differ from you a little bit and say I don't think he even starts as a reserve. I think he's going to start training camp with the starters. No, it's not happening.

Okay. All right. I'm going to, I'm going to, I'm going to, that's my guess. So we'll be. Not open with the ones. No, no, no. But they did. Aiden did as well, but Aiden is a freak show. Well, second overall, maybe there's two top 10 picks. I don't know. Sure. Wasn't Jack Campbell buried on the depth chart going into. Sure. Yeah. I mean, a few of these situations. Yeah. Yeah.

Gibbs was not the starter, but he was basically a co-starter. Jack Campbell didn't start. Jameson Williams didn't start. Well, but he was suspended. Or recovering. Correct. But even when he was healthy, he wasn't necessarily given a starting spot. But I'm going to be honest, when it comes to Tarion...

I see him more in line of a guy who should have went like 12, like, you know, like Gibbs, like, like, uh, JMO. And I think he's in the spot where he could, he should start from the jump. That's again,

That's my gut feeling. I'm going to go with he starts training camp. You're going to say he starts as a reserve and then works his way up into a starter. But I think we both agree he ends up as a starter. First two weeks playing in the NFL in the regular season. Week one's the Rams, right? Cooper Cup, Puka to Kua.

Week two, Tampa Bay Buccaneers, Mike Evans, Chris Godwin. Those are some pretty tough matchups right from get-go, regardless of if he's going to be lining up as the number one or the number two. So it'll be interesting to see. The next, we're going to stick with the cornerback position, obviously. The vast majority of people listening know where we're going next. Ennis Raikstraw went in the second round, also a corner. What are the expectations on him coming into the training camp and into the regular season?

So I think Ennis is going to get cross-trained both outside and inside. And my guess is he's going to have a better opportunity to see the field as a nickel this year than as an outside corner. I think clawing his way up the ranks on the outside is going to be more challenging than on the inside. And some of that is because I'm expecting Brian Branch to –

split his time between nickel and safety. And then I'm expecting the lions to lean on some of their cornerbacks to fill out some nickel snaps as well. So that means, and this is going to have a chance to get on the field potentially as a, like a corner nickel, like as a, you know, corner base nickel. And I think he's going to be competing with Amik Robertson for that. So I,

It's not like Ennis is going to be, and this is a guy who is, I think going to be probably third. He's going to be the guy who's like third string. Like he's going to be third string on the outside. It's going to be the third nickel as well. Like that's where he's going to start. He has the potential to climb up the charts for me. I think he can work his way into the two deep, but he's going to start in the three deep. And so I,

That means he's going to have to either overtake Robertson or Mosley. He's going to have to surpass Vildor, who was a starter at the end of last season, and Khalil Dorsey, who's had a really nice spring. But I think Rake Straw has the talent to do that. I think there are guys, some of those guys,

are vulnerable. So to, you know, giving up a roster spot or at least their spot on the depth chart, it's a rake straw and he'll get his opportunities, but I don't think it's going to be as immediate of an impact as, as, as Arnold is like, I think Arnold's on the field, ready to jump rake straw. It's going to be more learn as you go, come along. And then, but I still think he's going to find the field. It's really interesting.

how they're going to use their nickel this year. They it's it. Everything speaks to the fact that they don't want Brian branch to ever leave the field. They want him on the field all the time.

And in order to keep him on the field all the time, he's going to have to learn to play safety, like not just slot, but like safety as well. And so how much time will he be spending at safety versus the slot will be interesting because the fallout from that will directly affect rake straw. Um,

Rakeshaw is, he has a lot of what they really like. He's again, he's, he's so much, he's very much like Arnold in so many different ways. Like they're both very strong tacklers. They're both aggressive. They both like press man. They both are physical. They both want to hit you and let you know that it was them that hit you. They're both good at staying in phase. They both ran forties that weren't as good as what I think their play speed is.

The problem or the difference is, is that Arnold's just a little bit better in a lot of those areas. And he's got a higher upside, which is why Arnold goes in the first round and rake straw goes in the second, but rake straw is, is no slouch and he's exactly what they're looking for in a, in a corner. And so I think they're going to try and find ways to get him on the field. So if there's situations where you're playing a opponent and that opponent has a slot receiver that, uh,

Maybe doesn't match up with Brian branch as well. Brian branch may spend more time at safety that game. And you may turn to Robertson or rake straw and say, all right, one of you guys is going to be covering, you know, the receiver for 50 snaps at this 50% of the snaps this game, or we want to use, we're going to have some dime packages where rake straw comes in as one of the slots. And I think he's going to get his opportunities, but it's,

not going to be as significant as I think some of the other second rounders have been in the past. Or I think as much as some second rounders, you know, what people's expectations are for a second rounder, right? I think he's going to get somewhere in between like the 25, you know, around 25 to 30% of like the defensive snaps, which is, which would be good. That would be, that would be a good amount for him.

Tell me I'm wrong. No, you're not wrong. I'm second guessing what I thought because where I go is to two different players. First is Jack Campbell from last year who's playing time really increased as the season went along. Guy was really thinking about and not because of his caliber of a player. I'm not saying that

He is Darius Slade, but here's an example of a guy back in 2013, the Lions drafted in the second round, albeit a lot earlier than Rakeshraw, a 61st pick, and I think Slade was 36th, right? Slade didn't start until the last few games of the season. That was on a 7-9 team, and maybe Rakeshraw is not going to be

you know, good enough to be that, that, to be in that same situation. But that's kind of the way I was thinking about it today. And in the last couple of days, and we, after we discussed like what we were going to talk about,

today, but I don't know. I probably lean more towards you and I got it. You know, I got to watch what I say because starting really doesn't mean much, but the idea of starting means you're probably playing a lot of snaps and maybe he would, and he could end up in that situation anyway, due to injuries. You know, we'll see. Absolutely.

But I don't know. I'm sitting more in your camp now. But the best case scenario, I would love to say best case scenario is he comes in and he like works his way into, you know, being in the starting lineup by the end of the year, being a guy who's going to get over 50% of the snaps, you know, and that would be great.

Well, look at, I mean, look at, look at the cornerback room last year, right? Like you're expecting Mosley to come in and compete and he tears his ACL and, and, or he has a delay and he comes back and he tears his ACL. Jerry Jacobs ends up going to the starting lineup and then he gets benched because of his play. They give Dorsey a shot to start and then he gets benched and then they end up leaning back on Vildor, who was a guy who wasn't even on the roster midway through the season. And so, yeah,

It's very easy for injuries to all sudden open up opportunities where you're relying on a guy. Especially at that position more than probably any other position on the team. Right. But I think the nice thing is now is we always talk about the fact that there's certain positions where you need three starting capable players and you

Right now, I think they have at least three starting capable outside corners and they arguably could have like four, maybe even five, if you can, depending on where Mosley is, depending on how they want to use Robertson. And so for me, I think they're in a good spot. And I think that's going to make as far as depth, like they have the bodies to compete. Will they all work out? You know, probably not. Will they all stay healthy? Well, probably not. But yeah,

If they stay healthy and if they compete the way that we think they can, Rakeshaw's got a hard road. He's got a hard road to climb. But injuries happen, players don't perform, and all of a sudden Rakeshaw could be in a spot where he's cornerback three instead of cornerback five. But right now, not knowing what we don't know or what's coming, I think he's in a spot where he's going to be –

He's going to get some opportunities, but it's not going to be as consistent as you might hope out of a second rounder. But look, I mean, look at the, look at the lions past second round picks, like, you know, Josh Paschal, Levi Unzarike, like those are guys that didn't get huge roles early either. Um,

We're spoiled by last year's second round picks of Brian Branch and Sam Laporta. But like the second round picks prior to them, they weren't getting huge opportunities. And I think that more lines up with what we're seeing with Rakeshraw here. All right. Moving on to the fourth round. Lions take Giovanni Manu from the University of British Columbia, offensive lineman.

offensive tackle who knows maybe becomes a guard what uh what are your thoughts yeah i think he's going to have a hard time seeing the field um unless he makes some incredible leaps i think he is on the broderick martin path which means he's probably going to be in inactive um more games than he's not

The opportunity for him or his ceiling is what got him drafted so high. Right. But he's not, he doesn't appear to be row ready and he's got a curve at the same time. Offensive line is another position where players get injured very easily. They get rolled up on all the time. They get, you know, there's a whole variety of ways for offensive linemen to get hurt because the trenches are, are, are a brutal place.

If they keep the players that we think they're going to keep, I think money was probably not going to, he may not play an NFL snap. He might be on the 53 man roster, right? They'll lose them. If they have them on the practice squad, they absolutely have to keep them on the 53, but he, he could be a weekly inactive, a weekly healthy scratch.

Um, they did that with Steven Gilmore last season. He played three games. It was a healthy scratch pretty much the rest of the way. Broderick Martin was a healthy scratch a lot. Like, so they've, they've done this with rookies in the past. This is the method I expect. Could Manu, if he catches on quick, could he work his way up? Sure. Uh, but my expectations are very low and I'm looking at him as a long-term project.

I have no idea how many offensive linemen they're going to keep. Last year, they kept eight, I think, to start. It might have been nine. I could see them keeping 10 offensive linemen this year. Oh, wow. That's a lot. It's way more than you need. And ideally, you would keep nine. But I'm going to have a hard time seeing them move on. Maybe nine. Okay, I've got nine in my head that I absolutely think there's –

Those nine are almost locked for me.

Will they keep a 10th? I don't know, but I could see them. I absolutely think they're going to keep at least nine. And Manu is probably going to be that ninth guy or that last year. Christian mahogany between six and eight. Well, we're going to get there, but. Oh, that's right. We're going to talk about it. I mean, I'll spoil it. I'll say, yeah, but I'll tell you. I'll tell you why. Now everybody's tuning up. They just shut it off. I'll tell you why in a minute.

But look, I think Manu's upside is like he has a freakish body that he just needs to learn technique, patience, timing. There's a whole variety of things. But the upside is really what's appealing about him. He's probably going to be on the third string all throughout camp.

Right. I mean, like almost the whole way. It's all going to be developmental. They're just going to be showing them the ropes. Yep. He'll get sprinkled into the second team at different points because they're going to want to give him a look at higher level competition, second string competition instead of third. But he's, he's going to be.

swimming the you know all of training camp and that's fine like that when you drafted him this is what you expected you expected him to be trying to keep his head above water and that's where he's at um but he's a massive upside guy and so you're going to do your best to develop him and but if he might he may not play a snap uh this whole year i would agree i don't think he'll end up playing a snap this year they're just going to be developing them the whole year through

Uh, next six picks later, lions take Sione Vaki also in the fourth round from Utah. He was a safety also played running back for the Utes. We only see him as a grit back. Um, yeah, I, I think he's, um, he's a guy who's going to have a couple of different roles. Um, one of them is going to be running back. I think at worst, uh,

He's your fifth running back at best. He could be your third. Like he has that kind of potential in OTAs. He hit it. He hit on a couple of big plays. He showed some promise, impressed a lot of the people that got a chance to watch him participate. I expect that to continue. I expect him to just continue to,

to learn and develop and, and, and, you know, just bank reps and bank familiarity with what they're expecting out of him. And he's a guy that I expect to have some specific like plays put in place for him. And then I expect him to be the start on in all four phases of special teams as well. So yeah,

Bucky's going to spend most of his rookie year on special teams, but I do think he's going to see some offensive looks just because again, he's a fun guy with some upside and he brings some uniqueness that you know, that is a little bit different than what they have. You know, we, we didn't really talk about him much at the after the draft, but one of the things you and I like to talk about is you,

how much tread he has on a running backs have on their tires, right? Like how many snaps did they have? Do you know what his total snaps were? We got the, I have the numbers right here, but I think you already have it on top of your head. Go ahead. 66, 66 offensive snaps or offensive touches. It's a pretty low number. Four years at Utah. The hard part is with him is he,

There's a lot of wear and tears to see. Yeah. So, so, so it's, it's, you can't really just do the touches with him and be like, Oh, he's got a lot of tread on his tire, uh, on his tires. But you know, he was a two year starting safety there. So he, he took his, his, his, his banks there, but he's an interesting guy. Um, and I tell you the coaching staff in the front office are just in love with him. You listen to Brad Holmes, talk about him.

talk about when going to Vaki's pro day and watching him

do full workouts for safety, full workouts for receiver and full work, full workouts for a running back. And then another full workout for special teams. He was like, he essentially did four pro days. Uh, but, um, but I think he has the, the, the, the frame, the body, the mentality to, to handle that. Right. So, um,

It's going to be really interesting with Vaki. I do think he's going to have some offensive opportunities though. But when you think about like how much you've got to think one, can he jump Craig James? Craig Reynolds, Craig Reynolds. Thank you. Craig James was on my mind from earlier. Can he jump Craig Reynolds? If he can't, then we're talking about, you know, a handful of snaps, but if he can jump Reynolds, then,

There's going to be a lot more opportunities there. It's a big task. He's also going to have to beat out Zonovan Knight, which I think he's a really good player as well and had a role last year. But I think he's going to fit into, if I had to guess, I'm going to say he's going to be right in between that running back three, running back four role. I think he's going to start out as five. I expect him to jump up at least one or two spots.

Interesting thing about Vaki is that, you know, even though he's the fourth player the Lions took, he probably has the second most

clear role among the draftees, right? Like he is, you know, man, who's not going to play a snap. The break straw is going to be buried on the depth chart. He's probably not going to get a lot of snaps. I mean, and Vaki is probably going to get less snaps than break straw, but it's like, but Vaki, he knows he's going to be on all four special teams units, you know, and, and they're like, you mentioned, they're going to have plays for him in the offense. Like, like he's going to be, you know, he's already got his, his,

His first year all laid out for him and interesting for him. You know, I don't, I don't know if his talent's going to limit him. Right. He was a fourth round pick and all that, but he is a top tier grit guy. Like in his head, like what are his long-term plans as an NFL player? And I don't know if this Holmes and everybody else kind of see like, well, maybe he can even do more than,

you know, what we're asking him, but there'll be a real interesting guy to watch. I mean, I'm in the boat with you. We're going to see him a lot on special teams and a little bit here and there. I think that's a great point. You know, he was, he was a slot receiver in high school. And so if he's got that ability to be,

running back three, but also maybe a reserve slot and just give them more options. Then you can put two running, you can, he can, if you want to put two running backs on the field, he can be that running back. And then if you split them out in the slot, then great. You know, I mean, they want to do that with Gibbs more, but you know, think about if you send out a personnel group that features a

um, Sam Laporta, Brock Wright, Vaki in, in Jameer Gibbs, and then Amon Ross St. Brown as your fifth skill player. Well, the, the, the defense is going to counter with just a base formation and

And then if you spread those guys out, you know, because you can, because you can Sam Laporta and Brock Wright can be spread out and then you can put Vaki and get like, you can go empty and then put all five of them out there as receivers against base, uh, against the defense's base. You're going to get matchups that you like, right? Like they're going to have to shift their corners in, but that's a tough matchup out of a base to try and get those guys. And they have those kinds of weapons, um,

you know, granted all five of those guys are probably best as, as like slot type receivers, but still at the, my point stands, like they're going to be tough to match up with. If you, you know, if a defense is expecting them to be runners and they, and they come out as receivers. And I think Vaki can, can, can do that. I'm also interested to see if they're, if they want to use Vaki or, you know, at what, to what lengths they want to use him. Like,

What kind of blocking chops does he have? Because if he has really good blocking chops, you can use them more in third down situations, right? Like I want to, it's going to be really interesting to see where he's at from a developmental standpoint or where he's at at the end of training camp anyway.

You know, one of our, one of the lions, you know, quote unquote weaknesses is depth at wide receiver outside of Amon Ross, St. Brown and Jamison Williams, you know, with, with losing Josh Reynolds to the Broncos in the off season. And I don't know if it's that big of a deal. I don't, I'm not, I'm not crazy about this being that big of a deal. You mentioned Vaki and you've mentioned, you know, personnel groupings and all that. When you look at,

Josh Reynolds had 40, 40 receptions last year, played in all 17 games. You know, that's not even two and a half catches a game. That's what you got to replace.

in him a game now now this is kind of more of a turns into a baseball discussion but for the baseball theory behind you know replacing a statistical output or whatever output from players but i'm guessing this is what what yeah money ball guessing this is what ben johnson's working on right now is like well we've lost this guy but that's 40 catches you can see it being spread around between

all sorts of the other guys on the roster i don't know when you talk about vaki like he's gonna chip in five catches maybe 10 catches you know and there's 10 of the 40 you know like you're gonna get five more receptions on khalif raymond i get it all the data i don't know it doesn't seem as bad as it looks on paper when you stare at this depth chart it's like antoine green starting x receiver like oh no well i think you know even if green gets 20

of those 40 and Vaki gets 5 and Jameer gets 15 away you go you know what I mean you've already made that up right so who plays ZX is going to be very interesting because they have a lot of slot options and I'm interested to see where that goes now I'm the one wandering us off topic no that's okay alright

Moving on to the next draft pick, sixth rounder, Makai Wingo, defensive tackle from LSU. Now, I don't even know what to expect out of him because all of our defensive tackles in the last couple of drafts, like outside of Aleem McNeil, they've all spent some time on the bench trying to develop or hurt one or the other. So...

The way I kind of view defensive tackle is reader McNeil are kind of locked in. And then we're starting to see some progress from Levi owns a Reiki, uh, which is very encouraging. Broderick is still coming along. Um, but after him, it's kind of open or even after Levi, it's kind of open. Um, last year's UDFA Christmas seems to be getting a lot of opportunities, but the opportunity for Wingo is going to be there. Um,

Now if Levi comes on like they're thinking it's going to be a little bit harder for Wingo, but Wingo has inside outside flexibility. I think he's, he's another guy who's going to make the roster. But there's probably going to be times when he's a healthy scratch and there's probably going to be times when he's defensive tackle three or four depending on their opponent. So for me, I,

The upsides there with Wingo, the work ethics there with Wingo and he, he can be like a specialty type defensive lineman, but will he be like in the primary rotation? I think that's hard to say. And probably, and I, if I was going to say, have to decide one way or another, I would say probably not in this, in like the heavy rotation, but,

So, but again, there's still a path for him. There's still going to be opportunities for him to get onto the field. It's just going to be a little bit more challenging and I think more situational depending on who, you know, what they're trying to get out of them. At the same time, arguably one of the biggest weaknesses from the front seven last year was their ability to get interior pressure. And that's something that he excels at. So,

Even if he's a one trick pony, if he's really good at that one trick, he's going to get opportunities. I'm not saying he's James Houston per se, but the type of James Houston got on the field as a rookie because he was really good at that one skill. Well, same thing can be true with Wingo. If, if he's really good,

At getting interior pressure, they're going to give him opportunities to show that. And then they're going to give him opportunities to put that on display. So I'm going to say my expectations for him are defensive tackle four or five, not part of the regular rotation, more of a specialist, but the opportunity to get snaps. If he can show he's really good at giving that interior penetration.

Yeah, I would agree with you. And, you know, who knows how Levi's back's going to hold up. Sure. Though they'd say he's looking great and he's in the best shape ever. You know, he's saying all the right things. So we'll see. Hopefully he is because it'll only make the defensive line better for it. But I'm in the same boat as you when it comes to Wingo. All right.

Last of the draft picks also in the sixth round, Christian Mahogany picked 210 offensive linemen from Boston college. And you have them as one of the nine offensive linemen advancing to the final 53 man roster at this moment. You know, they, they started moving Colby Sorestal back out to right tackle. They did this with the, and then they were able to land Mahogany. Now,

Mahogany, that makes his path to the roster a lot better, a lot easier, right? Now, he's going to have to beat out Nitain Mutai, right? Or I'm mispronouncing that. But Nitain is a veteran player who's had some start. I don't remember if it's starting or just consistent snaps, but he's a guy who's been around for a while.

But Mahogany's upside is really there. Like he's a guy who really most people thought should have went higher third, fourth round grade. He ends up going to the sixth upsides there. He has starting potential in my opinion. Not right now, but down the road, I think he can be a starter there.

He's really good at being a bully. He's really good at that gap power scheme. He was one of a handful of guys that we had tabbed in the draft as a guy who we thought could be a guy who challenges down the road for a starting job. And with Soresdell moved back to tackle, it just creates a clear path. I think at the end of training camp, Mahogany will have jumped into that path

second spot at right guard behind Kevin Zeitler and Mahogany will probably be his backup. Now, Coyote Aushika, Kobe Soros, like I said, has some experience at guard. Aushika is a guy they've liked for a while.

Can he beat those guys out for to be the primary backup guard? We're going to see, you know, we're going to see that's what, you know, how training camp goes. But I think he's going to be one of the nine. I think even if he's not playing at that level at the end of training camp, I think the upside's there.

And my guess is he is playing at that level by the end of training camp. So I'm going with, yes, he's part of the nine and I would not be at all surprised if he is the primary reserve at guard when the regular season starts. Interesting. So, uh,

You have a coyote. I was Shika as the guy on the outside looking in, right? It's your Decker Glasgow rag. Now Zeitler Sewell. There's they're starting five Dan Skipper, mahogany sores doll Manu. That's nine. Yeah.

And I, and I was, I was chic is 10 for me now. I know they like them. And yeah, no, obviously. And he's played meaningful snaps. Yeah. And it's, and it's very possible that mahogany isn't ready by the end of training camp. And now she is. And that's why she can makes the roster, but I don't think. Why you feel there can be 10 offensive linemen on the 53. Exactly. Exactly. Because you're not moving on from Manu. I, I,

Dan Skipper has become this cult hero. But they can get rid of Dan Skipper and get him back as people get hurt. A hundred percent. They can. I wouldn't be surprised if they end up cutting him. It's a poor Dan Skipper. I would say, I would say, I think Dan Skipper is more vulnerable than mahogany. If that tells you where I'm at. Yeah.

All right. So, yeah. So that's, that's our drafted guys, but I think we should just at least explore the undrafted guys just to see who's out there for those who aren't familiar with the undrafted guys. Well, let's take a look at the undrafted ones and the,

um what their chances are so that you can if you're going to training camp in the fall you get a chance to know who all right so we're going to go in order of guaranteed money at the top of the list okay is center kingsley aguacun now they have three centers that they've been utilizing all three of them at center and guard throughout ota so they're cross training them

If you want, you want to talk about all three? Sure. Duke Clemens, Brian Hudson. And if I'm not mistaken, those three are all in the top five when it comes to money, right? The guaranteed money. Okay. So all three of those guys are guys that they thought highly enough of to give them top five money in their UDFA class. Kingsley...

is the guy who got the most and would seem to be the one that most, you know, that the expectations would be, okay, he seems he's probably going to get the most opportunities. Uh, but it's actually been, let me double check my, my note here to be sure, which I'm not talking out of order. It's actually been Brian Hudson. Who's been getting a little bit more attention now.

It's just OTAs and there's no contact, right? And there's no pads. And so it doesn't really tell us a whole lot right now. But I think when it comes, when the pads come on, it's going to be interesting to see how this goes. Now, the reason they brought in three centers is I think because they're looking for a long-term solution that

um, on the practice squad and potentially as a backup to Frank Ragnow. Now, as we just talked about with the, maybe them keeping 10 offensive linemen, they're not going to keep an 11th, right? They're not going to keep Kingsley or Hudson or Clemens just because, you know, they want to keep an, a reserve center. Like these three guys are probably fighting for, uh,

a spot on the practice squad. There's probably one spot on the practice squad or maybe two, like if you're flexible to play both center and guard, absolutely. Two of them could make it maybe even all three, you know, I mean, it just depends. Right. But I'm viewing this, these, these three guys as, uh,

they don't want to work Frank too much during, uh, from a practice standpoint during the season, they're going to need another body that can play center. And so let's find that guy and then give that guy an opportunity to make the practice squad develop, learn, and then maybe have a chance to make the roster a year from now. Um,

as they've developed and grown and maybe they can get developed into like a long-term position on the team. It's going to be super hard for them to, for any of these three to even make the roster, much less get any meaningful snaps this year. They'd have to, one of them would have to play out of their mind to jump the guys ahead of them. But I absolutely think one of them or two of them are going to be on the practice squad. I,

um as part of a weekly practice um role to help keep frank healthy and keep the team rolling but also with the long-term option of being something more so i don't think any of them make it i think they they have a good chance though to still stick around

Interesting. All big school guys, right? Aguacunes went to Florida. Clemens went to UCLA and Brian Hudson, I think went to Louisville, right? He bounced around a couple of colleges, all of them, very experienced guys. So it's interesting. That's the route they went, but maybe they, yeah, make a good point. Maybe they're looking to develop one of these guys into being kind of a long-term backup for the team. Yep. All right. Next up,

Second biggest total guaranteed money. A guy you were kind of excited about when they picked him up as a UDFA wide receiver, Isaiah Williams. So Williams is probably a slot only. He has some big play potential. He produced very well at Illinois. True time kid. Yep, that certainly helps. He's got experience on special teams as well as, like I said, on offense in the slot.

And he's kind of a gadget guy. Again, I think the path for him is going to be very difficult because of the fact that he's probably a slot. And this team has a ton of slot options. Not only do you have Amon Ross St. Brown,

And you have Kalief Raymond who can also play the slot, but you're going to have to beat out Tom Kennedy, who's been with the team for the last two decades. And he's not going to play the X, which is really where I think the most open competition is. So yeah,

Williams is in a tough spot, but if you can prove yourself as a gadget guy, there's opportunities. If you can prove yourself on special teams, there's opportunities. And he got big money for a reason. They're not just going to throw money at the guy so that he can come in to be a slot receiver during training camp and maybe stick around on the practice squad. They threw a bunch of money at him, the second most money, because they think he has a shot to try and work his way in.

It's a tough road, but the opportunity will be there. And like we always talk about money, the money speaks here. Right. And they threw, let me get the right number. They, they threw $225,000 at them. Like that's not backbreaking money, but that's a still a significant amount of money considering the

The player number three on this list was Steel Chambers, who only had 75,000. So you gave him quite a bit more. You gave Isaiah Williams quite a bit more to come to this team. And he's going to get the opportunity to challenge for a job. Look, the position hurts, the depth and the slot hurts, but he's a unique player. And he has that gadget ability and that special teams ability will give him a shot.

All right. Next up, another wide receiver, Jalen Calhoun from Duke played, you know, five full season, 60 career college games, 253 receptions in that time. It broke most of Duke's records. Wow. If you play 60 games, five full season can break a lot of records. Yeah. Um,

I have him listed as a slot because that's where I think he ends up. He played outside as well at Duke. I think it's a little harder if he is outside here in the NFL. It's probably going to be more at the Z than the X, which again makes that path to the roster very challenging. The X is where the spots are.

And that puts him like right in competition, direct competition with Kalief Raymond, who is arguably, you know, one of the better wide receiver fours in the league. Kalief is excellent. Kalief's had a good camp. Kalief's a hard worker. At the same time, Kalief is going to back up Jameson Williams. He's going to back up Amon Ross St. Brown. He's probably going to back up whoever wins the X role. And maybe, you know,

You know, I don't think he's going to, Kalief's not going to be your ex. He's going to get his snaps. He's going to get his opportunities. He's going to, he's going to play on special teams. He's going to be your punt returner. Kalief's going to get a ton of work. That's who Calhoun has to try and beat. And that's going to be a tough, tough road, especially considering the skillset, the experience, the speed that, that Kalief has. It's, it's, I don't, I don't see, we've seen a lot of guys come in and challenge Kalief.

Khalif in the past and it, it hasn't taken long for Khalif to kind of put them in their place. And so that's the Calhoun has his work cut out for him. I think he has a hard road. All right. Uh, next up Morris Norris Fresno state defensive back. So Morris is, or a Norris is, is a unique guy because he's been getting a lot of love in training camp.

Um, played mostly in the slot. The lions have used him in the slot. They've used them on the outside and they're planning on using him at safety as well. Now, how exactly they're going to use them and where he's going to find his role is, is going to be interesting, but it's interesting when you,

When you look at how they get split up, you know, how the rosters get split up and where he, and where the opportunities come. He was one of the rare guys, one of the rare U U D F A's that was getting work with the top team. And he was a guy that was getting opportunities in the two deep rotation with the starters by the end of OTAs. It'll be very interesting to see what he can do because right now it's,

him getting rewarded for working hard and producing on, on the field. But it's a tough path for him because as we talked about, they basically redid the entire secondary, but the lions are not going to turn away good corners. And if he shows that he has the skills to stick, he could be this year's Steven Gilmore. He could be this year's guy who makes the roster because he has a good training camp and a good preseason. And then he,

He'll just be sitting, you know, he could be sitting there waiting in the wings looking for an opportunity. And if that opportunity comes, as we talked about earlier, players get injured.

Uh, we'll see what happens, but right now, Norris of the UDF phase, Norris is the guy who probably put himself in the best position coming out of OTAs to be in a spot, to, to be in a position to earn himself, uh, a roster spot. So Norris is the name is a name to keep in mind. He is a guy who has a legitimate shot to, to sneak in as one of the back, you know, one of the last corners.

really yeah i would be pretty shocked i would too but at the same time we see these udfa corners come out of the woodwork all the time right khalil dorsey jr jacobs right yeah it happens so yeah you opened my eyes there all right next up isaac ukwu uh from old miss a defensive end yeah much tougher right um

There that's, these are guys who we're going to get to, to Ugu and then the other, the other one's Nate Lynn. We're going to get to him in a second as well, much harder pass for them because of the guys that are ahead of them on the depth chart. The thing that they have working for them is that the lions use multiple styles of defensive end to,

Um, and so will they be one of those guys that can kind of jump like right now, I would say Uku was like fourth or fifth string, right. Amongst the defensive ends at the same time, if they're, if he ends up being like closer to a Sam, as opposed to like a down defensive end, um,

That opportunity for him could be better because those players, you know, maybe, maybe the lines haven't, you know, solidified who they had, the guys they have in competition. And if they're like, okay, these four guys are going to be competing. Well now all of a sudden he's like third or fourth and set a fourth or fifth. And so, um,

couple breaks and, and, and he could get a chance to, to move up. I think he has a shot to be like in the Sam role. Like he can be an, an edge Sam type of guy. Um, but he's got Matthew Betts, the Canadian, uh, the, the, he played the second. Thank you. Um,

um, Mitchell Good from, uh, who they signed last year. And then James Houston, all, all are going to be ahead of them. So it's a tough, uh, again, tough road for, uh, uh, for Isaac. All right. So you mentioned Nate Lynn already. Let's go straight to Nate Lynn and then we can group the two safeties together. Nate Lynn, uh,

Edge defender, former teammate of Colby Soresdahl at William & Mary. Maybe he gave him a good review, a glowing review. They also went to his pro day, and they met with him at his pro day as well. Then they brought him in for a top 30 visit. There's a William & Mary pro day? I think he was part of it.

I think they get blended into something, right? Yeah. They'd be at Virginia Tech or I don't even know what William and Mary is close to. I'm not sure. But they brought him in for a top 30 visit as well because they wanted to get some medicals on him, get a closer look and have a talk with him. He's more of a down guy, even though he's a little bit lighter than Ukwu. He's still considered more of like a down guy. Like he tends to win more. But

He's lighter. He's like 250 pounds as opposed to like 260. And so would that meet, could that be an opportunity for him to be more of a Sam guy? It'd be interesting to see where, where will they give him reps? Where will they give him opportunities? Obviously, like I said, a guy that they thought enough to use one of their top 30 visits on. But, you know, again,

He has the same obstacles that we just talked about. He's got a lot of other edge defenders that are ahead of him, guys that are fighting for jobs, fighting for ends of the rosters, just like him. And he's going to have to weed through a lot of that to get an opportunity. William and Mary's closer to Charlottesville than to Blacksburg. So maybe it's University of Virginia. I don't know. Maybe it's Maryland. I don't know. Probably useless information. It's nothing we...

Neither you nor I nor anybody listening needs to know. All right. The safeties. First, Schell and Garns. Let's just pair them together. The other ones are in Lauren Strickland. I got you. Lauren Strickland. Both guys are kind of big hitter box type safeties. They're guys that fit more of the...

more of the Malafonwu type role as opposed to the Kirby Joseph. They're actually maybe more Brian Branch than Kirby Joseph. Tough pass, mostly because one, Brandon Joseph, who was a UDFA last year, has had a really nice spring and he was really showing out. They re-signed CJ Moore and they're planning on using Brian Branch at safety and maybe using Norris at safety as well.

That puts them on the third or fourth string, depending on if Branch and Norris are going to be in the rotation at safety as well. That's a much harder road. We think of safety as being one of the weaker spots on the roster and maybe needing more veteran help.

But if Brian Branch is going to be playing at safety, Kirby's playing at safety, if he's playing at safety, and then that's three really good options. And then if Joseph shows out, well, now that's four. And if CJ Moore does well and he becomes a dynamic special teamer again, he could be five. And it makes things a lot harder. I don't think Strickland or Garns have really... They didn't really show out so much at camp. So I'm looking at them saying...

They're really going to have to do something to catch my eye because their names didn't pop a lot. And while some of the other players ahead of them, their names were popping. And so tough roads for both those safeties. Has Tracy Walker signed anywhere?

No, not yet. Uh, but there's a, there's a handful of safeties that haven't yet. Tracy hasn't signed yet. Yeah. Quandary digs. It hasn't signed yet. I believe Justin Simmons is still out there. Uh, so there's a handful of safeties that I expect to get signed either right ahead of training camp or maybe during training camp, the lions are, I don't know if they are necessarily, if they positioned them in some, the position themselves in a spot where they need it. Um,

Maybe if they aren't as high on Brandon Joseph as it appears, then they'll go after one at the same time. I think they're comfortable with Brandon Joseph and CJ Moore competing for safety four. And I don't know, for me, you've got the money. I'd love to see Quandre at the same time.

I don't think any of those veterans are going to be itching to come here if they know that the coaching staff is going to be leaning on Branch, Kirby, and Ify as their primary three guys. So it could be a combination of trying tough to try and bring a veteran in at the same time and then Lions not needing one at the same time. If they added one, I think I'd probably be okay with that.

All right. Next up linebacker, Daron Gilbert from Northern Illinois. Yeah. So when they signed, um, Neiman, I was expecting Gilbert to be the guy that got cut. Cause I expected, okay. One linebacker ran one linebacker out. Um, I was a bit surprised it was steel chambers and not Gilbert. Um,

Didn't really hear a whole lot of Gilbert's name. Most people watching them at training camp, or I'm sorry, at OTAs and mini camp sided with the fact that Steel Chambers was the one that looked a little better and was in a better spot. So, but Gilbert stuck around. And so I don't know why I'm interested to find out why. And it could be one of these spots where he's it'll take me seem and seeing him in camp before I figure it out.

For now, though, you have to give him credit for sticking around, especially through that first cut. And if they do keep six linebackers, like we talked about when we talked about Steel Chambers at the top, then, you know, he's right now he could be in a position to be that linebacker six. So another name to keep an eye on because the opportunities there. I just I haven't heard much about how he's done. Next up, kicker.

James Turner, University of Michigan and four years at Louisville before that, hitting on 80% of his field goals throughout his career. Nearly all of his extra points. He's got a lot of experience, a lot of experience playing in big games and so far so good through many camp and OTAs. Yeah. Big leg and the accuracy has been there. Badgley has done well. And yeah,

He's shown, you know, his leg has improved as well, but the accuracy has not been as sharp as Turner's so far. So Badgley has the NFL experience and the trust of the coaching staff. At the same time, Turner seemed to have the better performance through spring. The thing is with this kicking competition is FIPP,

Dave Fipp, the Lions special teams coordinator. He takes the entire collective offseason into account. It's not just who has the hot foot or who's doing well now or who's the better kickoff. He takes everything that you did in OTAs, minicamp, training camp, preseason, all of it comes into a factor when deciding which kicker has the job. So first leg of this race seems to have gone to Turner.

Uh, but you know, Badgley was probably the favorite heading into camp, uh, you know, spring camp. So it could be a tighter competition than we think. Uh, it'll also be interesting to see if they add another kicker to the mix. Uh, there's talks of that potentially the whole Jake Bates thing. Um, he came in to visit the team earlier this week.

So it'd be interesting if all of a sudden he gets thrown into the mix as well. But the one notable difference here is that both Badgley and Turner seem to have bigger legs than what the Lions have had in previous years, at least last couple of previous years. All right. Kicker from the Michigan Panthers, Jake Bate. No, that hasn't happened yet. He's trying out with the team.

I don't know why we're still excited about the guy, but let's see what happens. It'll be interesting. But like I said, people are Turner seems to be have people's attention. So that's, that's a good thing.

Finally, long snapper Hogan Hatton, University of Idaho. Do you have any information on this guy? Nope. Long snappers do not get any attention during OTAs or minicamps. So there's really nothing. He's not a guy that we scouted. We don't know. Interesting. All right. So I did my own scouting in the last 14 seconds here while you were talking about James Turner. 2023 Phil Steele preseason All-American long snapper, um,

three tackles on punt coverage last season, 2023. Now before that, the, in the years leading up to, uh, is, is preseason all American long snapper season, high school, he played on both sides of the ball, helped lead his team to the state championship in Arizona as a freshman, sophomore and junior. Now he had two sophomore seasons cause they played in the spring and they played in the fall, you know, after the COVID, um,

Played linebacker and tallied a bunch of tackles, played on all sorts of different special teams as well. He blocked the punt against Duke or Drake. I'm not Duke Drake in 2022. And so interesting. He's got some shops of playing football, not just snapping the ball between his legs, which all these guys probably do, but that's probably all we'll talk about Hogan Hatton this season. Yeah.

Well, look, I'll get my eyes on him snapping at some point. It might not be the first couple of practices of training camp, but we'll get a gander at him and see what he's got. Do we want to touch on anything else? We have gone through the whole UDFA list. We've talked about all the draft picks. No, I think we touched on a lot. I think we've covered what we wanted to cover, hopefully in as much detail as we wanted to cover today.

And we talked about a lot of players. And so hopefully that gives the fan base a nice base. Yeah, a nice a nice set of background in mind. Yeah. When they when they head into when training camp kicks off and, you know, if you like I said, they'll open them to the public. And when public gets in there, hopefully a couple of these names jump out at you to keep your eye on.

All right, let's go to the reviews and let me tell you, Eric, I take a beating in these over the last couple of weeks. I don't think, I don't think people like, I think that we have so many new members of, of to our audience that I don't think people like who are getting their first taste of Joe really understand like the, the, the sense of humor that you were bringing, um,

I just think you came up with a creed. You don't have to protect my poor performance, Eric. No, no, no. I don't think it was a poor performance. I was offended. You shouldn't be. I was. But I think, look...

I think people are overreacting because a couple of people overreacted because whatever, like, well, it's true. They may not be representative of the whole, what, what you, the, the, the whole cult thing that you were like, you were trying to create a new angle on something that so many other people have talked about. And I thought it was creative and unique and,

It's concerning when everybody's wearing the same shirt. It's just me. I'm probably not right. That's just how I feel. I know they did it on purpose. I thought it was unique. It was a unique perspective. It's not like you're the only person to criticize a potential groupthink amongst a front office. I think people got a little too sensitive about it, but whatever. People are entitled to their own opinion. I don't

I was offended for you, even if you were not. Oh, I was. I was. I don't. I didn't like it. But whatever. That's fine. I'm still offended that we got a one star for my review of Polite from like a few years ago when I did. Oh, yeah. That one. Yeah. Yeah.

That was a misunderstanding. That was a misunderstanding, but that was my fault. I can understand their perspective. Okay, I guess they could take it that way. I think you meant... Obviously, you didn't mean what he thought or whoever thought you meant. That was my error, but I'm still offended. I was still offended. Lin Zab, May 30th, five stars. Hands down the best lines coverage for any diehard fan. Keep up the great work, fellas. All right.

8207 one star, not enough content. So that came on June 3rd. So we took that advice, Eric, we waited another 10 days and we've put out some content. You know what? Okay. Listen, I, I get that you want more content. I get it. Okay. And I'm not even offended by that because I,

I'm not even offended that I had a personal family thing that I had to tend to that was a higher priority than my job. And that disrupted the ability for us to put out free content for people to consume. But one star because I didn't give you enough content that you like. Like, I thought that would at least be like a three star. Like, you know, because like, hey, you like the content. You just aren't. You just wish there was more. So I don't know. Whatever. Again.

I'm trying not to be offended. So that's okay. So this is where maybe we have to cut it up. This was my fault. Maybe we should cut out the host complaints. Because I could see this going in the wrong direction. You know, when a whole bunch of new reviews are going to show up for people saying terrible things about us. It's like, here we're hammering on the terrible things. No, no, no. Okay. So, all right. Let me clarify. Um,

Yes. I'm sorry that the content isn't out there. I had other priorities. I hope as new content comes out and more podcasts come back in that it changes. You know, I hope so. Yeah. Oh, yeah. Well, it's a slow period anyways. What are we going to do? No, I mean, look, it couldn't be helped. Like I literally if I could have if I could have made a podcast, I would have. But I have responsibilities that I had to take care of.

I Love Mice, five-star review. Nice. But I Love Mice said I was a second-rate meathead throughout the show. First time I've ever been called a meathead. Yeah, I don't think I've ever heard that. I love mice for that one.

Okay. That's, I have not, that's, I think the first time, again, I think new audience just doesn't understand, you know, the humor, but. And then plus growth on May 17th, one star occult lane. Please don't have this bozo back on. Fair point. Fair point out of a plus growth. I can't argue with that. Okay. Look, you can't, I can. Don't do it, Eric. Joe.

And I won't. I'll try not to. But the thing is, you know what episode this is for you and I? How many podcasts you and I have done together? This is 307. I was going to say 306 or 307. So if you've not been on the podcast, or if you're listening and this is your first time hearing Joe, welcome. Joe's been on this podcast 307 times before. And so he is...

the co-host of this podcast. Like he's not going anywhere. And, uh, I know, I know there's a lot of people out there that, um, that, that love to hear your meathead comments and stuff. You bozo. So, um, um, look,

I get it. You, the critics are fine. Uh, I'm just, at least they're engaged with the show and want to, I'm trying to appreciate that. I'm trying to be outraged, uh, as part of being fun, but I'm just, I'm just having fun with it. Like,

Now, now I say this now that I'm, that I'm having fun with it at the same time. If any of those listeners were listening and they heard me like getting mad and they didn't listen to me qualifying this right now, then that I, we probably lost him and I apologize, but don't apologize. Now we already lost. Yeah. All right. Well, sorry. Sorry to everyone else who had to entertain or had to listen to that. All right.

Doing great on Spotify. Keeps trending upwards, staying at five stars. So that's great there. We appreciate everybody reviewing. We appreciate everybody listening. And the comment about not enough content there, right? We'll get more out there as the weeks get along and we'll be back on our regular schedule soon enough. It's just the off season. So just to...

to speak on that for a second. Oh, boy. No, we're trying to... The Pride of Detroit podcast is in the works. We're still working on trying to bring that back. I have the Good Morning Pride content that we had was meant to be a temporary... just a temporary source here. At the same time,

I know I want to, I I'm hoping to have Jeremy on and we're, we're going to talk about, um, what he saw at OTAs and mini camp. Um, I know Miko wanted to come on and have a conversation with me. So I'm going to try and get a couple more of those up as well. Um,

In addition to episode 308, 309, 310, all those other ones that Joe and I are going to do, we've got a summer mailbag to talk about. We'll talk a little bit more in depth about the roster. We'll do our roster stack that we try to do each offseason ahead of training camp. And we've got more content planned.

Now that my life is kind of settling back down and some of the personal things that I had going on are resolving themselves. Yeah, ideally we'll get back on schedule. All right, that's it. That's all we got for this week. So until next time, let's go Lions.