The Detroit Lions have huge expectations going into the 2024 NFL season. Detroit had one of its best seasons in franchise history in 2023 and the entire NFL is expecting them to take another step forward this year.
They did everything they could to make that expectation into a reality this offseason. Detroit's general manager Brad Holmes put together another masterclass, signing key free agents and putting together an awesome draft class that aggressively fixed the Lions' ailing secondary.
Now that training camp has started, every Lions player will have to compete to earn their spot on the final roster. That's a standard for the Dan Campbell regime.
However, not every player can make the final roster. Below we will highlight three key Lions player who are struggling early in Lions training camp.
Hendon Hooker has to earn the right to be the Lions backup QB. Can he beat Nate Sudfeld in a training camp QB battle?
The Lions want Hendon Hooker to be their backup in 2024. He just has to prove that he's a better option than entrenched NFL veteran Nate Sudfeld.
Detroit drafted Hooker in the third round of the 2023 NFL Draft. The Lions took a chance on Hooker, who may have been drafted as early as the first round if he hadn't suffered a season-ending injury during his final year at Tennessee.
Hooker rehabbed for much of last season, so this offseason is essentially his rookie training camp. Unfortunately, it has looked that way.
According to John Maakaron of Sports Illustrated, Hooker struggled with accuracy issues earlier in the offseason program. He would wait too long to release the football and made errors in situational drills. Mike Payton from A to Z Sports confirms that the issues are persisting into training camp.
It seems clear that Hooker needs more time to adjust to the speed of the NFL game.
Thankfully, if Hooker “loses” the training camp battle for backup QB there is still little chance that the Lions move on from him.
Detroit's running game is reportedly still a “work in progress”
This is the most surprising entry on the list.
Detroit boasted one of the best running attacks in the NFL last year. They ranked in the top five of nearly every statistical category, including leading the NFL with 27 rushing touchdowns (tied with the 49ers and Dolphins).
The roster arguably got better this offseason as well. Jonah Jackson was replaced by Kevin Zeitler at guard, which should improve the run game. Jahmyr Gibbs has more work under his belt as a second-year player, and David Montgomery is at the peak of his career. So what gives?
It is too early for Lions fans to panic just yet, but it seems that the Lions run game struggled through the first few padded practices of training camp.
“After two (padded) days we’ve had more runs stuffed than we’ve had in the past few training camps. When we look at it from an offensive perspective, we’re very close to generating some big ones but we haven’t put it together. That’s the easiest thing to say,” offensive coordinator Ben Johnson said on Thursday before the third workout in pads, per Paula Pasche of the Associated Press.
Johnson added that “we're not 100 percent clicking, which is not uncommon at this sage of camp.”
One positive reason for the run game's struggles could be the defense playing better. Detroit pumped a ton of resources into the defense this offseason. The Lions were also one of the league's toughest run defending defenses in 2023, so it shouldn't be shocking if they are succeeding early in training camp.
Head coach Dan Campbell believes that the Lions are simply “one guy” from perfection on nearly every play.
“Like anything, we start with a heavy load of different types of runs and you see ‘OK, what can we really hang our hat on and get good at?,‘’’ Campbell said. “So really we haven’t busted some of these out of here. The defense has done a good job but honestly on offense it’s been one guy. We get an unbelievable double team with Zeitler and (Penei) Sewell, but we don’t get the backside cut off, it’s one guy here, one guy there and the other four or five guys are doing it well. So look, it’s a work in progress.”
Expect the Lions to continue to have a dominant run game in 2024, though it may look slightly different than last year.
Will the Lions bring in competition for UFL star Jake Bates?
Oddly enough, we have to talk about a potential kicker battle at Lions training camp.
The Lions signed kicker Jake Bates from the UFL after an impressive spring season. Bates nailed a 64-yard game-winning field goal to open the UFL season, which caught the entire league's attention. He went on to nail several other long kicks for the Michigan Panthers inside of Ford Field in Detroit. That made it easy for the Lions brass to imagine what could happen if they signed Bates.
Bates was in a kicking competition with Lions veteran Michael Badgley. However, the competition became just Bates once Badgley tore his hamstring and was placed on injured reserve.
This has become a problem because Bates has not shown the consistency that NFL teams like to see in a kicker thus far through training camp. According to the Detroit News, Bates had some of his worst practices late last week. In one practice, he went 6-of-9 in a sequence of kicks with makes from 33, 38, 43, 48, 51, and 59 yards and misses from 46, 56, and 64 yards.
This begs the question: will Detroit bring in another kicker as competition for Jake Bates?
There are no obvious names currently available, so the Lions may have to do some hunting on the free agent scene or maybe explore the trade market.
Either way, they need to have a backup plan in case Jake Bates can't cut it as an NFL kicker.
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