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Speaker 4: Hey, everyone. Jefferson here with your daily DLP. We got a special guest today. We're not even gonna waste any time bringing him in. Just we'll we'll just get to it because I know you wanna see him. Doctor Jimmy Liao. Thanks for joining us on the daily DLP. How are you doing, Jimmy?

Speaker 5: Good. How are you doing, Jeff?

Speaker 4: Very good. Very good. It's, last week of OTAs. We have mandatory mini camp next week. But on the injury front, it it never stops, man. That this way, you're a busy man.

Speaker 5: Oh, yeah. Unfortunately, true.

Speaker 4: So let's get into it. The biggest news probably, and and it's not really news, it's sort of more confirming the kinda not so great case is Kirby Joseph and his I don't know. What do you wanna call it? Degenerative knee, arthritic knee, cartilage issues? Like, we've never really gotten an official diagnosis from the lions, so I know that we're sort of flying blind on that. But, you know, based on everything that you've seen, the fact that he's not practicing, the fact that Dan Campbell talked fairly negatively, toned anyways about, you know, getting Kirby back, What's what's your latest take on what's going on with Kirby Joseph?

Speaker 5: Well, the speculation initially upon Dan Campbell's very first press conference back in November of last year was articular cartilage damage. We do have a report from Dave Burkett that confirms cartilage damage. There's no source to that report, but that seems to be the most definitive report we have out there. But otherwise, you're right. There's no definitive diagnosis from Kirby or the Lions. But all the wording, all the timeline, everything put together does sound like articular cartilage issue, which, as you mentioned, can also be described as degenerative or arthritic. Now the latest update, which was not much of an update, but we can read into it, was from Dan Campbell, a week ago with what he said about Kirby Joseph. So this is during the week two, press conference for him. So he said that I don't know what's going on with Kirby Joseph's knee. We probably won't know till training camp because he hasn't been testing it. The last time he played was October. Yeah. This knee has been going on since July 2025. He had was pictured with a knee sleeve in late July. We're in June. It's been eleven months that his knee issue has been going on at least. That is the concern there where eleven months since at least since the knee injury started. They've tried everything so far, and he's still not testing it out in practice or practicing. So that there is

Speaker 4: Let me ask you about that because Dan basically said, like, we don't wanna push it now. We we wanna wait to find out what we find out. Does that make sense to you?

Speaker 5: 100%. That was my expectation going to OTA. If this is a wear and tear, cartilage issue, degenerative knee issue, it's not something that heals. It's not something that you can lift weights and it gets stronger like a muscle or a bone. It's something that's mileage, like tread on your tire. You use it, it goes away. It doesn't regenerate itself. The tread on the tire does not regenerate itself. That means you wanna save that mileage for real games and not use it up on meaningless OTAs or off season workouts. So it was fully expected that he would probably skip OTAs, but it's still slightly bad deals because if he was actually healed up or better, maybe he could practice some OTAs, get through one, two, or three days of practicing a row and not have a setback like he did last season towards the end of the season when he couldn't get through more than one practice in a row.

Speaker 4: Yeah. It's just just it's frustrating because we we all want Kirby to be back and the way he was, and it just it feels like it's just not gonna happen. And it's it's sad.

Speaker 5: It is sad, especially at such a young age. You never know when these cartilage issues can come for you. Some of it's in it's in their sixties. Some of us can be in your twenties. He's 25. So young, but it can happen young.

Speaker 4: Yeah. That's unfortunate. I wanna get into the other safety because there's a little bit I don't know. There's some sunlight on Brian Branch at least a little bit, and and I wanna phrase it this way. And George Kittle, all pro tight end from the forty niners, tore his Achilles on January what was it? January 11. And he proclaimed, I'll be out there week one. And he seemed pretty confident about it. He had his doctor, El Atashe, who's, like like, one of the renowned surgeons for it, back it up. Well, Brian Branch tore his Achilles five weeks earlier. Any chance we're gonna see him week one? Because I know we've talked in the past, and we've concurred on this that the the timeline frame is basically, like, Halloween into the bi week, maybe Thanksgiving. Should we accelerate that earlier, or or do we stand pat?

Speaker 5: Brian Branch's entry was 12/04/2025. George Kittle, first of all, what players say during the off season, I take with a monster grain of salt.

Speaker 4: Thank you.

Speaker 5: It's Yep. It's it's really meaningless. Good. It doesn't tell me anything. It's great that he's optimistic. It's great that he has a target for week one. That's all fantastic from a mental health standpoint. So he's gonna everybody's different. Everybody's different how they handle things. For him, maybe it's my goal is week one. I'm gonna go all out to do that. With these

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Speaker 4: Hey.

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Speaker 5: Actually gonna do that? Who knows? But what he says doesn't mean anything. Action will speak louder than now with Brian Branch, you're right. He's a a month earlier than George Kiddle. He plays a different position. He plays defense, which is a reactive position. The secondary, it's a backpedaling position and bursting forward position, which is exactly the number one mechanism for Achilles tear. So that is a concern there. It could take him longer to return than another player. On offense, near wide receiver or tight end, you can set up your steps. You can control what you're doing a little bit more than on defense where you're reacting constantly. So it's a it's more athletically challenging to be on defense. Now with Brian Branch, the other slight concern is we saw some rehab videos of him just in the past week or so. We haven't seen him do any sprinting, jumping, cutting, nothing really strenuous at all. The most we saw was very light jogging on a treadmill. Now I'm not gonna read too much in the rehab videos, but Tracy Walker was posting sprinting videos at the six month mark. Brian Branch is currently at the six month mark. Yeah. Does this tell us anything? Who knows? But there's no sign that he's ahead of schedule at this point.

Speaker 4: It's probably the best way to phrase it. Keep in mind, you know, that I I bet he brought up the fact that he is, like, a it's a different position, and the mechanisms of movement are so much different on defense than they are on offense. I don't think we take that into account very well.

Speaker 5: Absolutely. Position matters. You look at Patrick Mahomes quarterback who's coming back from a serious knee injuries, hoping to be there for a week long. He's a quarterback. He doesn't have to move much. He just needs his arm and his brain to be good, which they are. Position absolutely is a factor.

Speaker 4: Yeah. We did see Sam Laporta out there. I took that as a good indication. We still haven't like, he's not full go, but he's at least out there, you know, catching passes and sorts like that. Any long term concern with him, or are we still feeling pretty good that he's gonna be just fine once once the regular season rolls around?

Speaker 5: There's a good chance he's gonna be just fine at the start of the regular season. The concern is if there's gonna be a recurrence of a spinal herniated disc issue going forward. Reliability is a concern. If you look at a comp, Rob Gronkowski, tight end, end up having to have multiple microdiscectomies and other spinal surgeries throughout his career. These are things that get aggravated on a regular basis playing football, especially blocking, which causes hyperextension in the back. As Sam Laporta mentioned last year, this is not something that was acute that was related to one specific incident. It was accumulated trauma over time. That means once he starts playing football and starts accumulating trauma over time again, is this gonna recur? Is it gonna get aggravated? We're not gonna know that until he starts doing it.

Speaker 4: Alright. Fingers crossed. Wanted to talk to you about Ben Bartsch because this is a guy that we haven't seen yet. The Lions did in fact sign him, offensive lineman, played with the forty niners. He suffered a Lewis Frank injury. And when I think of Liss Frank, I think of Kevin Jones, career ending. Amir Abdullah, career altering. Lane Johnson, actually, of the Eagles, we haven't really seen him come back yet, but the Eagles fans are more than a little concerned. I probably should be more concerned than they are that he might not be the same again. He suffered it, I believe, was week 11 last year. Just can you just go over what a Liz Frank injury is and how it negatively impacts, like, specifically running back, but also, like, offensive lineman like Bartch who are, you know, you gotta drive, you gotta plant, you gotta push off. It it feels like maybe this is one of those signings where we might never see him.

Speaker 5: It's possible. Big concern that he hasn't shown up in the first two weeks of OTA. Something might be going on. A list of Frank has a midfoot injury, most commonly the second metatarsal of the foot. Commonly seeing soccer players or dancers which are twisting their feet all the time and putting their feet in torque type positions. It can be caused by a twisting injury while you're on your toes. I think that's what happened to a mere Abdullah, as you mentioned. Yep. It can also occur if you get stepped on. Like you mentioned, Kevin Jones and Amir Abdullah absolutely career altering issues. These can be very tricky. It's a very small anatomy in the foot area. Tricky issue to deal with. Ben Barch had surgery for it. It's a very tricky surgery. Possibly uncertain results. It's not something that's super reliable. So with Ben Barch, he's a big guy, offensive lineman, putting a lot of weight, a lot of pressure on a very, very small area. But there can be an uncertain recovery here. Now whether that's what's going on in this OTA for his absence, we don't know. Maybe there's some other issue going on, but it definitely raises red flags. One thing to keep in mind, Hawaiians gave him $330,000 guaranteed money to sign for one year. That shows that they had confidence that he was recovered. Similar to what we saw with Levi and Zureka last year, gave him $3,500,000 guaranteed a month later has an ACL surgery. So the Lions, during the signing, actions speak loud in the words, their actions suggest that he was recovered at that time. It'll be interesting to see what exactly is going on in March here.

Speaker 4: And just to to further that, the team doctors are gonna get a look at him before they sign him, obviously, and they they had to have cleared it.

Speaker 5: That's the that would be the assumption. Absolutely. Especially when you're giving him guaranteed money. Team doctors have all that information. We probably put him through some workouts and tests to make sure he's okay. But again

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Speaker 5: The list, Frank, it's tricky. Maybe you aggravated it. Now it's back in the the operating room or rehab room for a prolonged period of time. Who knows?

Speaker 4: We did get some bad news with with Kendrick Law, ACL tear. I wanna reflect this back on last year, though, because at this point last year was a little bit later, but we lost Dan Jackson, the safety, rookie safety. I assume that he's gonna be ready to rock and roll this year. Do you have any lingering concerns about Dan Jackson? I I don't know if we've seen him out of private. I haven't been out there on park. It'll be out there next week, but, you know, any long term concerns with Dan Jackson who's like, he plays with violence. Like, that's that's that's his calling card is he's gonna he's gonna late. He's gonna sprint at you, and he's gonna wallop you. Any worries that that he might not be ready to roll, over a year out from from from, I believe, was a knee injury, torn ACL.

Speaker 5: Well, the good news with Dan Jackson is he's been pictured throughout this offseason offseason workouts and OTA. So

Speaker 4: from a That's good.

Speaker 5: Picture standpoint on the official website, he is out there. He's working out. I'm not I

Speaker 4: mean, I love I love that you're scouring the pictures for these things too. It's fantastic.

Speaker 5: That's all we got. Yeah. So you gotta take any information you have and really read into it. And you can read into it. That's who are missing. Is there a reason they're missing? So Dan Jackson has been present. Now I don't know if I ever got an official diagnosis for his leg injury. It was very nondescript last year. Do you know of any insight

Speaker 4: I don't. I don't. It's it's it's the vague, you know, NHL, lower body injury, which could be anything from a bruised toe to a guilt. He doesn't have a leg anymore.

Speaker 5: Right. And with the seventh round pick, there's always the possibility that it was extremely minor injury, and they just shelved him for roster management purposes.

Speaker 4: That's certainly not.

Speaker 5: So I I'm I really don't know if this is something serious, if it's not serious. I don't know anything about what's going on. But good news so far, he's in OTAs. It looks like he's fully active and present. So from my standpoint, I don't have any concerns unless I start getting a more specific diagnosis.

Speaker 4: Good. That's good. Anything else going on medically that we need to be looking at, worried about, on Alliance front?

Speaker 5: Well, you had mentioned that Kendrick Law, who had the ACL. Unfortunate, but, generally, ACLs have very reliable recoveries unless you have associated issues like we saw with Jermaine McCoy or Malcolm Rodriguez last year with a delayed recovery. He should be totally fine for OTAs next year and head into the season pretty close to full strength with the ACL. So very unfortunate, but definitely not the worst thing for him or the Lions.

Speaker 4: Yeah. Now He faced an an uphill battle to make it in the in a crowded receiver room, where I think a lot of us forget that Dominic Lovett is on the roster. I know I'm guilty of that from time to time too.

Speaker 5: Yeah. It would be nice to shore up the depth chart in the receiver room. Our top three are obviously rock solid. But getting some nice depth as well as a returner, especially with the change in the kickoff rules, 70 plus percent return rate nowadays. Khalifa England's gone. He was getting older anyway. I'm thinking why he wanted to jettison older players. I think that's probably why they traded up to get Kendrick Law. The returner position is extremely important nowadays with the kickoff return rules.

Speaker 4: Oh, yeah. And, Dave Fipp doesn't hide it. Like, he's he he's very enthusiastic about the kick returns. FIP's enthusiastic about everything, but he really, really loves his returners. And, you know, Greg Dortch fits in there. Just, I I don't I don't know if you know this, but I'll I'll segue into it. With the increase well, one of the reasons that the kick return was sort of going away was because and they've modified it, was because it was a very high injury percentage position. Did you get any figures, from the last couple of years since they've modified it on is it getting safer, or is it still, you know, abnormally causing injuries for?

Speaker 5: I've heard that the NFL reported that it is getting safer. I don't have the exact data, but it still appears to be a fairly dangerous position, especially for the returner. We saw Khalif Raymond, I believe it was last year, had a pretty scary looking neck injury when he rammed head first into a tackler. So the returner is still going full speed. They're having a run up, like a 20 yard run up going full speed into a bunch of tacklers and blockers. So from the returner standpoint, I would say it's still a pretty dangerous position. But for the blockers, it's a much safer position. And I wish we could have changed that rule before James Houston broke his ankle running down full speed and getting blasted full speed, basically bending him over and getting that right ankle fractured and stuck in the turf. So from a blocker and tackler standpoint, coverage standpoint, I think it's much safer from those guys on the vehicle.

Speaker 4: Good. We'll look for the data on that. Jimmy, that's all I got. You got anything else to add?

Speaker 5: I don't think that's it so far. Looking forward to finishing up the OTAs and OTAs. I think you're heading in a mini camp. Right? So I'm looking forward to That's right. From you.

Speaker 4: Yep. Then then then we get, five or six weeks off. So

Speaker 5: Yeah. That'll be nice. So with your focus on injuries, I I love to hear your reports from MiniCamp because you really hone in on those issues. So

Speaker 4: Well, we will try

Speaker 5: a lot.

Speaker 4: We will try on it. I'll be there. I think it's next Wednesday and Thursday, if I'm not mistaken. But, anyways, Jimmy, thanks so much for your time. I appreciate you coming in and and dropping some knowledge on us.

Speaker 5: Yeah. Thanks for having me, Jeff.

Speaker 4: Alright. Doctor Liao. Always love that guy. Gives great information. We're gonna call that a daily. Thanks for tuning in everybody. Jeff Frinson signing out. Be good to one another everyone.