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Speaker 2: Hey, everyone. Jeff Risen here with your daily DLP. Welcome to Tuesday. It is April 28. And today, we are gonna focus the daily on one specific player, one specific pick. I got ambitious, over the last few hours and watched some breakdowns and, film of Lions' draft pick, Kendrick Law, wide receiver, Kentucky. And I thought I'd share some notes on that and a couple clips as well of his usage. It's, it's an interesting study. I need some therapy after watching the Kentucky offense. It is pedantic. It is very, ugh, not great, gimmicky, and Law comes to the comes to the lines from a usage where he is more of a move tight end type, but not really a tight end. It it's easy to see that they didn't have a lot of, I don't know, it's it's gimmicky. It's frustrating to watch, and that needs to be said in before and as we preface this entire conversation about Kendrick Law. So, I watched, the Kentucky games against Louisville, Tennessee, Texas, and Auburn, and Toledo. He didn't play a lot in the Toledo game, which was their opener. And I don't know why, but he was only on the field for a handful of snaps in that one. Only saw one passing target. Kentucky basically used him in the way that the if you remember the Lions offense back in the day when when they had white running backs as wide receivers? They there's a lot of that. And I wanna show I'll just bring up a clip. This is from the Auburn game, And this is pretty standard usage of how he's used. He's number one coming out of the backfield here. Yeah. Breaks a tackle, gets up the field as best as he can. I'll show it again here. You know, they motion out. He's lined up. Shotgun split. Breaks the tackle. Follows his block, gets down the field as best as he can. That is the Kentucky offense in a nutshell, and that's his usage. And that was one of his better offensive plays. There's just not a lot of downfield work. First thing I wrote down, he doesn't really run routes. They didn't ask him to run routes at Kentucky. That's not a that's not a Kendrick Law problem. That's a Kentucky offense problem. Now for the lions, they're gonna have to teach him how to run routes if he's ever gonna play on offense. Because it's basically you know, he he his his route running is run straight. If the ball is not coming to your side of the field, if you're not one of the primary two reads, you don't even need to run your route. Like, you can basically just stand there, and there actually is a lot of this. I'll bring this up. This is from this is from the Louisville game. I missed the beginning of this clip. I apologize when I

Speaker 1: clipped it. But he's at the bottom of

Speaker 2: the screen here, and the ball has just been snapped. He ran about four steps, and he's just standing there. And there's a whole lot of that, a whole lot of that. That is not Detroit Lions offense, ladies and gentlemen. He's gonna have a lot to learn to adapt into the NFL to be more than just a placeholder on the field. Again, that is that's not necessarily a negative with Kendrick Law. Like, that's what he's asked to do in their offense. You're not involved in the play. Don't inject yourself into the play. I would prefer that he would inject himself into the play and at least, like, run towards you know, when when it's obvious that the play is not coming to him or even as a backside outlet on this. Again, I'll I'll I'll bring it up here. Like, roll with your quarterback. I know you're not involved, but maybe, you know, show that you can, you know, you know, flow with the play. Be a backside outlet. Go try to block somebody. And there's none of that. And that's that's pretty consistent across his film. And that is something that makes me even more, convinced that the Lions aren't really planning on him in the offense, certainly not as a rookie. He's, he's there for special teams. Now I've got a and I

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Speaker 2: In yesterday's episode of The Daily by the way, thank you for liking and subscribing, watching. Do appreciate that. I talked about how he is this year's gift to Dave Phipp, the special teams coordinator. And after watching all the games, offense clips, watching their breakdowns, the Kentucky offense did not prepare him for the NFL as a wide receiver. Again, he could have done more, I think. He does come from Alabama where they do actually, you know, demand that when you're on the backside of a play like that that one against the clip that I just showed against Louisville, where you do have to go and block and get after it. And he doesn't really do that. And he didn't play a lot in in three years at Alabama. Didn't do a lot on special teams. So that and that's as a return man. He had 12 kick returns last year. Think I got that right. No. I'm sorry. Nine kick returns, three punt returns. I watched four of the kick returns. He did not break a tackle in any of them. He doesn't have a lot of wiggle to his game. He's very he is fast. He can accelerate. We're gonna get to a clip here in a second that will definitely spotlight that. But there's just not a lot of wiggle to his game. He this is not this is not Theo Riddick. This is not Reggie Bush. This is not, as a wide receiver, Golden Tate or even Isaac Tyslaw. It's not even Kalief Raymond. Leaf had a little bit more wiggle to him, and Leaf was known as being a very, you know, straight line ish type of receiver. Not a lot of, you know, flexibility to his route running. That's definitely true with Kendrick Law. And, again, some of it is Kentucky's usage. And I do need to go back and watch more of his usage in Alabama, but he caught he caught under 20 passes in three years. There's not a lot to look at there. He was so was again, was he buried on the depth chart. But if you're expecting to compete as a return man, and I see that a lot on social media and even in our Patreon Slack where everybody's gung ho about it. Well, at this point, from what I've seen in the limited usage as a return man, again, he had nine opportunities last year as a kick returner, three as a punt return. His very first punt return attempt at Alabama where they tried to get him in, he muffed it. And they yanked him and never really put him back there again. So there's work to be done if he's going to beat out, oh gosh, any number of return candidates who are out there. He's not, at this point, better than Jacob Sailors was as a return man. It's it's just not the the evidence isn't on film yet. Now could they develop into that? Absolutely. I did I I will say I did not watch his punt or kick coverage, you know, where he's out there as a gunner. He does have extensive experience at doing that. And that's where I do think that, you know, the Lions see him as a reserve wide receiver, deep reserve wide receiver who's gonna have to contribute on special teams if he's gonna stick. As a running back, there's not a lot there. Route running, very basic. Very basic. Very, I wanna say it's not stiff is not the right word, but there's not there's just not a lot of lateral movement to it, and nor is it required or asked of him. So you're getting a raw wide receiver. There's developmental speed and athleticism with them, and that does show. And that will bring up the piece de resistance, his touchdown. This is fun. Again, this is their offense. Little bubble screen. And he outruns everybody up the sideline. Reads his block nicely. I'll play this again because it's fun. This is Redemption. Little orbit, gets out there. Nice little nifty move, set up a block, accelerated off of it, and outruns the defense all the way to the end zone. It was my favorite play of his on tape. Loved it. You can do some of that with him. I don't have any clips of him working down the field and making catches because they're not on tape. That's not what he did. Again, this is a special teams player, a gadget play player on your offense who's not gonna give you and one there were a couple of other things that I noted just in my notes, from watching these games. He doesn't sell play fakes very well. You know, when he's coming across and motions in front of the quarterback, and they do this a lot, he doesn't really, like, talk and sell. Like, he's trying to, you know, get that ball and and convince the defense. He just sort of runs past Lea, you know, and goes. So that's gonna have to be instilled upon him, that you're gonna have to give that max effort, in selling those sorts of things every play. Their offense, it's I need something stronger than water in this cup to, to describe the Kentucky offense.

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Speaker 2: And it's kinda sad because I had watched the running back, the two interior offensive linemen, Burton and Farmer. Like, I watched those guys, and I studied them earlier. And just watching them, like, I was focused more on the run game. And, obviously, it was gimmicky, but they were better they they had the tools to be better and more creative on offense and more traditional on offense than what they they did. Their quarterback was rough. I said in the Patreon Slack jail this morning in the thread that I had on there, it wouldn't have surprised me if you would have told me that that he was playing at Hope College, which is just up the street here. That's, that's the level of play in the SEC. That's tough to to operate. He didn't get better as the season went on. That was one other thing with law. He didn't get demonstrably better at playing receiver, at the nuances of receiver, at selling the fakes, at sinking his hips in a wheel break, really at breaking. Again, blocking. So this gets touted a lot. And there were a couple of instances where I saw he he threw a crack back block. He got away with it against Auburn. He probably should have been flagged for it where he he he you know, laid somebody out, man. It was cool. It was nice. In the NFL's penalty, he, he got it. And there are times where he is an effective blocker working for his fellow receivers when they are working on bubble screens, on sweeps, things like that. But there's also a lot, again, where he's just sort of standing there and observing or not really understanding like, where the defense is coming from and attacking the play. And there's a lot of them where he's sort of, like, you know, just sort of shoving, like, a two hand shove, like, a little bit late and reacting to it. So, he's got some, work to do before he's an NFL level blocker. Now when he gets it when he does understand his assignment and when it's where it's where he thinks it's gonna be, he's good at it. He can wall it off. He does have enthusiasm. He does have some power behind him. But I would say it is, at this point, inconsistent. And, again, it leads me to reinforce the point. If he's playing wide receiver for the Detroit Lions in 2026, it's because dudes got hurt, and we don't wanna see that. He's got a long way to go before he's ready to contribute in the NFL. Just from that standpoint, Jackson Meeks last year came in a lot better. Isaiah Williams a couple years ago came in a lot better. More polished, more variety and diversity to their game. So you're gonna hang your hat on special teams with this one, much like Antoine Green, Chase Lucas, Sione Vaki, Dan Jackson have been draft gifts to Dave Phipp. That appears to be what Kendrick Law is. And, watching the film of all these games this morning and a little bit last night has reaffirmed that for me. So I hate to be the bearer of bad tiding. If you're thinking that he's gonna, you know, challenge Isaac Tysloff or wide receiver three, that's not gonna happen anytime soon. There is certainly athleticism to work with, and there are things that you can develop with law. But there's gonna be a lot of that going on before he's, on the field. He needs a lot of reps in a NFL style offense. Hope he gets him this this off season, preseason. I hope we see a lot of him in preseason, and we see some growth from where he's at at Kentucky, from the the first game that he played it was against Toledo, until later in the year, in games against Tennessee and Ole Miss, where he did show some better spatial awareness as a receiver. But, again, there's there's a long way to go. We're gonna end that one on today. We're gonna keep this one focused on Kendrick Law today. So, I will go through some of the other UDFAs and, also, also, some guys that I didn't necessarily pay as close attention to, later on in the draft that the Lions got, but we'll get through, Skyler Gil Howard and you know, I watched a lot of him, but, we'll we'll do something like this with that as well. I appreciate you all checking in and following along. You can get me on the socials at Jeff Rizdon on, Twitter, x, whatever you wanna call it. Blue sky, I'm there at Jeff Riz. Facebook Facebook page is Jeff Rizdon, Lions NFL. You don't have to be my friend. It's okay. I'm good with that. Appreciate you joining me here on the Detroit Lions podcast, your Detroit Lions and Reddit connection. This is The Daily. We're signing out. Jefferson done for the day. Be good doing it there, everybody.