Don't expect to see the Lions starters playing in ANY preseason games...

Mike Payton discusses the reasons why you won't see any Detroit Lions starters playing in preseason games.

Transcript

00:00As we go into training camp for the Lions, one of the biggest questions from fans is

00:03will we see any of the starters in the preseason, maybe even in the Hall of Fame game? Let's talk

00:09about it. Hi, this is Mike Payton from A to Z Sports Detroit. Today we're going to talk about

00:15whether or not the Lions are going to have any of their starters out on the field during the

00:19preseason or in the Hall of Fame game. As we mentioned at the top of the video, the Lions

00:23will have the Hall of Fame game this year. That adds a fourth preseason game to their slate,

00:28which is different from what the Lions have done in the last few years where it's only been three

00:32and then you get that final week of the summer in order to make cuts. Now it's four and then you get

00:37that final week of the summer in order to make cuts. Will that mean that the Lions potentially

00:42have some space for some of their starters to play? Since they're starting camp a little bit earlier,

00:48there's this kind of idea, this thought that, well, that's a lot of time without reps if they're

00:53not going to be playing in the preseason game. Well, here's the thing. We know that the Lions

00:57don't really do that. They don't really put their starters out, at least not all of them.

01:02For preseason games, they're more keyed into the joint practices they're going to have. Now the

01:07Lions do have two sets of joint practices this year. They're going to practice two days with the

01:12Dolphins and then the following week one day with the Texans before they have their preseason outings

01:17against both teams. Dan Campbell has talked in the past at length about how he looks at these

01:22joint practices as more important to the starters than the preseason because they're getting

01:27a lot more reps in these things than they would in a preseason game where they would probably come

01:31in and play a drive or two, maybe a quarter at most. In this case, they're getting a game's worth

01:37of reps three times during preseason and they're getting actual real competition. You saw against

01:43the New York Giants last year just how deep and how competitive everybody was when everyone was

01:49getting in with fights and all that stuff. I don't know if that's going to happen against the Dolphins

01:53or Texans, especially since both teams, the Lions and the Giants got fined so much money last year

01:59for doing it. But the idea is that they're going to bank so many reps during that time that they just

02:03aren't going to want to put any of those guys in the preseason game and they're going to use those

02:07for the younger guys, which is where some of maybe the starters could wind up playing.

02:12Christian Mahogany, Tate Ratledge, some of these younger guys that you expect to start could wind up

02:18playing in those games just to get more reps, just to get some in-game reps as well as those joint

02:23practice reps too. So I would not at this point expect any starters to play in any of the four

02:29preseason games, not even for a drive. I would definitely look for, this is the time for the

02:35young guys. This is the time for the rookies. This is the time for the undrafted guys to try to get

02:40themselves a spot on the 53-man roster or at least a 16-man practice squad. We'll see what happens with

02:47all these guys, but I would not expect Jared Goff or Amin Ross St. Brown or Jameer Gibbs or any of

02:53these guys to be out there taking reps in preseason games. And you probably don't want that anyways.

02:58So that is that. We'll get some more information as Dan Campbell starts to talk to media here at the

03:04end of the week. And we'll go from there. We'll see you next time.