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Speaker 4: Hey, everyone. Jeff Risen here with your daily DLP. It is Monday. We made it to April 27. NFL draft weekend is over. Now we're settling in and, sorting through everything that happened over the weekend, both for the lions and the rest of the NFL. I am back home. I appreciate everybody's, patience and, you know, the support, first off, for for watching all the stuff that that Chris and I did over the weekend and also the daily, on Saturday recapping it. Those are always available, of course, at the YouTube archive, the Detroit Lions podcast archive, wherever you get your podcasts. Thank you for liking and subscribing. Today, we're gonna do something, a little bit different. I did not have a chance to do a mailbag yesterday. I was in transit, being dad, and I loved it. It was great. Wonderful. Very long drive, but it was a wonderful day. I did wind up getting caught up on, quite a bit of stuff. And so today, I threw it open to our Patreon Slack, Detroit Lions Podcast Slack, $5 a month. Get in there. You don't have to deal with social media BS. I think that's worth of the price of admission right there. I threw it open for questions about the draft and, you know, what would be going on with the roster, and people delivered very quickly. I gave you all a one and a half hour window, and I got a lot of really good questions. So I will address those, as much as I can here. And a couple of them sort of overlap, but, got one from Edmark, for what this what the draft and not taking a safety at all, means for the futures of Kirby and Branch. And somebody else asked on that as well. Corey did. Ditto on what we think this means for the safety position. He has another question as part of that that I will get back to. I wanna go back, and I I I did this on Saturday, but I wanna reread the quote from Dan Campbell on the safeties. And, he was asked, if draft they're not drafting any safety. He says anything about their confidence in Kirby and Branch and their injury recovery. And he said, yeah. It wasn't about it wasn't that we didn't intentionally draft a safety because we felt good about them. I feel like they're both trending in the right direction, but didn't just line up it just didn't line up. Just like it had hadn't hasn't lined up, at other positions in the past, we didn't ignore it. There were some good good ones that were out there that got picked just before we were able to, but it just didn't quite line up. I don't really think that the class was that as deep either. So, I had so it had to line up, and you had to strike right. That's the end of Brad Holmes' quote. Not sure I buy all of that, but the larger question about, does it say anything about Kirby and Branch, I kinda think it does a little bit because if certainly, if both were going to be gone, they're not going with the the the the veteran spackle that is Christian Isian and and Avante Max. By the way, I like that. I I think they've done a very good job, and also bring Thomas Harper coming back for another season. Like, they're they're better than it could be for sure. But I have to think that you know, look. And and I looked at their draft, and, like, yeah, there were safeties that were out there a lot. And I talked about this on Saturday. The best player available for a lot of us, not just myself, but, you know, Nel Kuper's board, Daniel Jeremiah's board, would have been a safety at several of the picks. Now the lions might not agree with the assessment of the player, and that's fine. But that's one of those where if they really felt they needed one, they would have done something to get one, in my opinion. So I do think that it says something, more honestly about Kirby than it does Branch. We we sort of know what's up with Branch, his timeline after tearing his Achilles. He should be back sometime between Halloween and maybe Thanksgiving. It's probably gonna be a trip to Europe in there, which I wonder, you know, if, if he'll go on that. That it feels like November is gonna be the right time. We actually have little whispers of a date already, but it's unofficial. I don't wanna cast false, false word out there. But I would expect that to be in November, And I expect the branch to be back around then. Kirby, again, we don't really know. It feels like, though, just common sense, like, in a defense where the safeties are the key playmakers on the back end, and they've got two great ones when they're healthy, best safety tandem in football. You would have think that they would have found a way to make a safety a higher priority within the draft. That's that's my take. I'm a stick to it. He did also say, on if they feel good about, Kirby Joseph and Brian Branch's injury recovery, and Brad said, yeah. Like I said, I think they're both headed in the right direction. And I like that. That's that's what we want to see. That's what we want to hear. It's very good. It it stays in line with what we have heard sort of behind the scenes as well, which is nice. Fingers crossed, man. Fingers, toes, l any anything that can be crossed for good luck, do it. We need those guys. They're great. Missing them last year hurts so much on the back end. Again, I'd I've said it before. I'll say it again. It's worth repeating. When the starting secondary was healthy last year, this was a top 10, top eight defense, and then all hell broke loose. And after the starting secondary was entirely gone, depending on the metrics that you list look at, they're either thirtieth, thirty first, or thirty second. Yeah. Yeah. Get healthy, guys. Wanted to answer a question on, from WAGS. This is a good one. Any insight on the UDFAs we sign? So I wanna bring up I will, bring up the list here. This is from Pride of Detroit. Thank you, Jeremy and Eric and Alex and staff over there. Good people there. Luke Altmaier. Yeah. So he was a quarterback that I had targeted as somebody who the lions should like, and I didn't know if they would or not. Apparently, they did enough to sign him as an undrafted free agent. What I like about Luke Altmaier is is that he does the same things in the same general way that Jared Goff does. Not saying that he's Jared Goff or that upside or anything, but what I'm saying is if he has to come in and play, he can run the same offense, hopefully, at a level that's reasonable enough that the lions can maintain winning. You know, when you when you have a backup quarterback who has divergent skill sets and you have to have a a slightly different playbook for that, well, that backup isn't getting a lot of reps with the guys. So asking him to do different asking the starters to do different thing, like, I I like the fact that he is, skill wise, style wise redundant with golf. And I do like like, he does some there are some things to like about about Luke Altmaier. There really are. Love his guts. I love his intermediate range, his touch. He's a leader. He needs to learn how to take a sack. He needs to learn to get down. He's taken two of the most hellacious hits I've ever seen a quarterback get up from. He He's gotta learn to protect himself a little bit. So, like, there's reasons why he went undrafted. I totally get that. But I like it. I had a draftable grade on him, and I hope hope that it works. So they haven't had that since, you know, the head and hooker experiment did not work. You've invested so much last year. You've got an undrafted free agent. If he doesn't make it, well, guess what? He wasn't supposed to. That's that's the status that we're at with the the number three quarterback. And if he can push Teddy Bridgewater to be number two by the end of his rookie season, if he even gets that far, love it. We got Miles Kitselman, tight end from Tennessee, Melvin Priestley, guard from Illinois. I have watched Priestley. I don't have an evaluation of him. I have not studied Kisselman at all, so I'm not not in on him. The next two, though, Eric O'Neil, edge from Rutgers. I should've brought this page up because he was my when I did the an edge for every round for the lions, he was my six rounder, and I wrote that back on actually published on Valentine's Day. So I was in early on O'Neil. He bounced around a little bit. He started at a d two at FCS school, then he played at James Madison, played with the, the Cygnetti crew. He transferred to Rutgers. And when he has a plan as a pass rusher, he gets home. He's a reliable pressure generator and was a reliable pressure generator in the big 10. He is I wouldn't call him a crush the can guy, but he can set an edge. He can play the run. He does have some size. He does have some power. The problem is is that he frequently is just, like, very he's not, as aggressively proactive as you want from a pass rusher, typically. But I like it. He he's he's a good find and and, was somebody that I had noticed. And I had mentioned that, the Lions would would probably have some interest in, whether it be in the sixth or seventh round or after the draft. Lucas Lucas sure looks the part, man, and his tape tantalizes at times. He's just gotta put it together. He is an athletic project. He is definitely a crush the can type of guy. Talk more about him. I'm gonna do some film work on some of these guys, including the next guy, Aiden Kiannet. Keyonaina. Nose tackle from Cal that they gave $300,000 to as guaranteed. You can't say that that's a like, they're going to make the team with that, but that's a pretty strong indication that they like what they see. He is, in fact, the only nose tackle that they've added. They lost two this off season in Roy Lopez and DJ Reader. It's a fairly significant talent dream going up the out the door. See what he can do. I do remember him from Notre Dame. I can't say is that I watched a lot of his Cal tape, but at Notre Dame, there are things to like. Has sort of an he he makes plays. He's very good at slipping off the block at the last second and at least getting arm on it, making a tackle or assisting on the tackle, more than he is a, true, like, immovable object type anchor. He's a little bit more active than that. To my knowledge, he wasn't much of a pass rusher. But, again, I I need to I need to watch more on that. Eric Connor from Morgan State. This is a guy I did watch, and I had ranked him. He was in my top 300. I was tipped off to him by an area scout from an AFC South team, in about December, December, January. I went he played two games against FBS schools last year, Morgan Stace, an FCS school, in Maryland. And they played South Alabama, and they played Toledo. And I watched both of those games. The biggest thing you can say about him is that Morgan State effectively asked him to be Ray Lewis. Like, they didn't have a lot around him, so they're like, dude, go do everything you can on every play. And it led to some spectacular moments. It also led to some moments where, like, wasn't he supposed to be there? Why was he over here when the play was going over here and everybody sort of knew? Like, there's a lot of that just in those two games. Now Toledo won. I believe I believe he won 63 to nothing. Like, it wasn't a competitive game. He didn't play in the second half. But you like the athleticism. You like the fact that he is a he is a truck stick of a hitter. He does have instincts. He does have eyes. He's not so great in coverage. That was one thing that, that did show up, in the Toledo game. He did give up a touchdown in coverage where he and it wasn't even a blown coverage. It was more of just like he just got beat. And if you watched Toledo football, like, that's a good good Mac program. Not a lot of NFL talent on that offense. Defense otherwise, but defense was good. Manuel McNeil Warren going second round of the Browns. I like that pick. We liked him in Detroit too, but, you know, we talked about the safeties. I think he has a shot to compete with Damone Clark to be the Grant Steward replacement as a special teams ish linebacker who can maybe maybe subpackage in. He is not gonna replace Alex Anzalone. I know the athletic profile probably dictates that he can or says that he can. He's not there with that. This is a guy that probably needs to be on the practice squad as a rookie, and I like it. He's a good find. Deshaun Rucker, don't know much about him. Amaris Brown, I did watch him. He he's a long shot. We'll see. I'll I'll just leave it at that. But, again, worth worth the shot. It does appear that the Lions are not going to have their rookie mini camp, at least not in the way that they've had it just as they also didn't have their their local pro day. That is very disappointing to me. I know it's disappointing to agents that they didn't have their their pre draft one. If they don't have the post draft rookie mini camp, that's something that they are gonna have to explain, because that is first off, it's a way just for the guys to get to know each other. You The more time these guys spend around each other, the tighter the team gets. Veterans do show up at that. They don't typically work out, but, like, last year, a couple years ago, we've seen guys who are starters hanging out there, whether they're on injury rehab or just, you know, in town and wanted to check on the guys. I think that's a mistake if they're missing out on that. Nobody asked about that one. Of those guys, though, Altmire certainly has a very clear path to being quarterback three if they need keep three. And if not, then he can be on the practice squad in the way that Jake Fromm was. And I think that he has a higher upside than Jake Fromm. I really do. And then, Lucas and O'Neil are realistically probably fighting for the same spot with a bunch of guys that have been through that, and, like, Nate Lynn is still there. That actually leads to one of the other questions that I wanna bring it up here. This is from my friends. Call me Dave. Hi, Dave. You can be my friend. Which players went from likely to make the team to competing for a spot after the draft? He's actually specifically wondering how secure Greg Dortch is with his spot, but I'm curious about the others. I don't think they replaced Greg Dortch. I think he is, return man. I think he so let let's throw, law, Kendrick law. Do they trade it up to get wide receiver from Kentucky? My take on him without having watched a lot of him yet, and he, I I watched a little bit this morning. I'm going to watch more in the coming day, day and a half, and to get a better feel for him. My initial feel for him is that he is this year's gift to special teams coordinator Dave Phipp. In the way that they've given Vaki, they gave the wide receiver that they took in late from North Carolina a couple years ago. Last year, you know, they've taken Chase Lucas in that role before. You know, Fipkus won every year, and I think that that this year is law. A guy who might never play on offense but will be invaluable on special teams and out there all the time, and he could conceivably be the return man. He played running back at Alabama some. They didn't really know what they had in him. It felt kinda like Kentucky didn't really either. He's a great athlete. He's got a great heart, loves playing football. It's just, is he a wide receiver? Is he a running back? Is he a gadget type player? But, yeah, he's gonna play on special teams. That is a shot at, Antoine Green, by the way, was the name of the guest. It's racking my brain there. Antoine Green was the wide receiver from North Carolina. Unfortunately, his, injuries caught up with him very early. Liked him too. That was another one that I correctly pegged to the Lions. After his combine interview, which I I was one of two people that was standing there, and afterwards, he was the guy who covers what's the name he cover? I think he covers the Panthers. Panthers are Falcons. Somewhere in the ASL South he turned to me, looked at me. He's like, that guy sounds like what you won, Detroit. I'm like, thank you. And they did. Have fun with these guys. Who else got got challenged? So depth wise, defensive line, defensive edge, like, there's a lot of dudes now. Peyton Turner who was signed with all the injuries he had he's had. You know, Tyre West can be there. You know, they brought in one of them. Tyler Lacey is there. Anthony Lucas is there now. O'Neil is there now. Ahmed Hassanin. So of all those names I listed, that was let's see. One I'm looking at their roster. One, two, three. That's seven guys I listed. Four make the active roster. One, maybe two are on on, on the practice squad. Defensive line, you know, they added Skyler Gill Howard who is undersized, sort of an odd body. Did, they, they they got that's an interesting spot because Anzuriki is back. Chris Smith is back. McKay Wingo is back. Miles Adams is there. I know that they like what they've seen from Miles Adams in limited granted very limited time with him. I wonder where they're going with that. Let me pull this down here. Yeah. Their draft, made the defensive front certainly interesting for camp battles. As far as offense, you know, they gonna be battles for the interior offensive line and the depth, you know, because they did take, you know, the obviously, they they loaded the top of the the tackles with Blake Miller, and they still have Larry Borom. Giovanni Manu probably has a more precarious hold on a roster spot now than he did earlier. You know, guys like Ben Barsh, Seth McLaughlin, guys who are coming off of injuries that they, you know, brought in this off season. Not all those guys are gonna make it. There's just not enough room. And then the tight end room is just redo like, so look. The top three were already set. Laporta, Wright, and Conklin. Zack Horton was back. You know, now you've added in Myles Kitsil, and you've added in Thomas Gordon, who they signed earlier this offseason. Like, I don't wanna say that any of the top three were in, but that that fourth tight end spot, maybe fifth tight end spot, it's about it's gonna be fun watching those specials. He was paddles and training camp. I can tell you that, looking at those positions. I don't think it did a lot else. The secondary look. We always knew it was gonna be a battle in in in the quarterback and safety rooms, so I don't think anything's really changed there. Corey asked about the safety position. We kinda covered that. He did say and this is a this is a good question, and I'm I'm glad he asked it. Thank you, Corey. Does this tip their hand a little more on how they are going to line up personnel wise on defense this year compared to being in base all the time in the past? And coach Tom also asked about this, related question. Can we see an extra defensive tackle, defensive lineman make the final roster if the line has played more five man fronts? If so, do you think that roster spot likely comes at the expense of the linebacker room or another position? Those questions are very related, and I like it. I I like where y'all's heads are at. I've talked about this a lot. I know people on other shows have as well. The concept of playing more just whether it's a four man line or a five man line, but only two linebackers. And whether the the fifth like, the third linebacker who was on the field last year being Anseloni, who they have not replaced, Don't look like they're going to. I mean, yeah, somebody's probably gonna get cut, and you can bring him in and and see what's going on, but they have not made an emphasis on replacing him. And it's very easy to read into that, that that third linebacker spot will instead be filled by an extra defensive back or an extra defensive lineman in the formation. Whether it's a five two four or a four two five, I'm certainly for that. Again, we watched them last summer run a base five man front with Hutch on one side, Davenport, or Hassling and Get Some Run on the other side. There was I think I think actually Tyrus Wheat was there for a little bit too. No. He wasn't. He came later. There's somebody else that was there. It might have been Nate Lynn, like, whoever was there. But when they did it against the Texans and like, it it worked. It was effective. And when you've got a linebacker like Jack Campbell, who's an all pro, who has range, who has vision, who has instincts, Derek Barnes at his best is a very good compliment to that. We need him to be at his best more, certainly. I can see them liking that. And as and and and it can match and I love the idea that they can mix and match it. You've got especially if Kirby and Branch once Branch comes back, but especially if Kirby's healthy, there's a ton of versatility. Christian Isian can play all over the secondary. Avonte Maddox can play all over the secondary. Kirby can play center field. He can play in the box a little bit. Thomas Harper is the same way. Like, you've got so many options there. Chuck Clark can do those things. He's primarily a box safety, but they did bring him in. You know? I I like it. I I I really do. I think I think they've done a very good job in addressing the secondary with what they've done this off season and not really prominently addressing it in the draft. And I think no. Obviously, Abney Abney is my steal for the lions in this draft. Really good pick. He's got a very good chance to make a dent. Now to go back to the prior question, who's might be in roster danger? When they selected Keith Abney, that, whether it's intentional or not, should be a shot across the bow at Ennis Rake Straw that That it's time to crap or get off the pot. Get healthy. Get on the field. Show us what you can do. Because it's been two years, and we've seen like, I'm not gonna say that he hasn't like, he's shown some things when he's been healthy. But being able to stay on the field is one thing that he hasn't been able to show. He's gonna need to do that because now they have a viable replacement for him. And a guy who can play inside or outside, and is stylistically similar, Rakeshrough is bigger. They're both, like, lacking top end speed, but the there's enough redundancy there that I it's tough to see both of them making it. Again, it's early. We're not even in May yet. Trying to figure out roster gymnastics of who's on the final 53, but, you know, that that is that is definitely something to pay attention to. This is a more draft related one, and it is and I I like that it's got asked here because, it it's from, where'd it go? I scrolled down too far. My bad. From Jeff Merrill. The godfather Dante Corleone. Any dust on why he wasn't drafted and why he hasn't signed as an undrafted free agent? Is this his medical with his blood clot issue or something else? That's a good question. I do not know the answer to that specifically. But you have to think that a guy who had blood clot issues, it caused him to miss some time in 2024. It was blood clot in his lung. That's not something that you really want to have happen. He's been healthy otherwise. Like, he he did have a bad foot, but, like, he he can play through a broken foot. He he he's good there. He'd I do wonder. I have not heard anything on it. I will ask, and I have people that I can ask that will will hopefully let me in on that. Because I cited Corleone as a guy who would fit what the Lions want at nose tackle. I had cited him as a guy to watch on the second or I'm sorry, on the draft third day. Didn't think he was going in the fourth round, but I thought there was a chance he could go fifth, sixth, certainly seventh. And that six seven range was right where he wanted to be. Yes. I did that for my daughter. Teenage girls, they love the six seven. Yeah. God bless you if you got one. Yeah. I liked Corleone. I hope it works out for him, in whatever he tries to do because there that that's an NFL football player right there if the medicals pass. So good question, Jeff. Thank you for that. I have talked to you for almost half an hour. I think that's good for a day. Appreciate y'all staying with me here. We will have a lot more going on. I'm talking with doctor Liao this week. We're gonna talk about some of the injury status of the players that they've been drafted, and I'm sure I will ask about Kirby and Branch as well and his prognosis for them and some other guys that might be coming off of injury. So I'll look for that. That will either air on Wednesday or Thursday. I am working through different draft analyst guests. Emery Hunt is going to come back. I don't know which day yet. We haven't set up a time. I will have Chris Topaso back on. I'm working on getting a couple of other guys, who might have appeared with us in the preseason. I'm working on a couple of guys who are bigger names. We'll see if they, can can pry some time away to be with the the daily DLP. They are friends. Hopefully, they can, take look. This is a busy week for us. I just published before I started recording this. My, 5¢ on the NFL draft weekend, that is up at Real gm, footballrealgm.com. Please check that out. It also, is very damning of the Minnesota Vikings. So if you don't like the Vikings, I know there's some FTVers out there, you'll wanna read that. You'll like it. I promise. I'll have more stuff there too, coming in the days. But, that's it. Thank you all for making it to the end of the daily DLP. Thank you for liking and subscribing. Jeff Rizdon signing out. Please be good to one another, everybody.