Speaker 0: Hey, everyone. Jeff Risen here with your daily DLP. This is Thursday, June 18. It is, the first day of Lions' official summer vacation. They wrapped up mini camp yesterday. Training camp starts, in a few weeks in July, and Allen Park is basically empty or emptying out today. And, so, wanted to go over a couple things today that Dan Campbell talked about in his press conferences this week because I think they deserve a little bit more attention and maybe a little bit more analysis detail type thing. Dan said a lot of things, that I I and you can watch press conferences on the on the Lions, website. I was there for them, and they they tend to get interpreted a little bit differently in the media room than they often do out in the broader world. And it tends to be, good of the old Jerry Cantrell song, in between. Somewhere in between the wrong and right, we fight. It feels like that there's I think the immediate interpretation within the media room, and we tend to talk about it right afterwards, is winds up needing the outside perspective a little bit because people who watch from the outside tend to see things differently. And that that tends to be what gets commented on on social media and Reddit and, you know, other places like that in in our Patreon Slack, by the way, which is a great place to join right now, because you can get things. Chris is working on some things behind the scenes that are pretty darn cool, and will get you more, for your membership. So it's worthwhile. And one of the first ones was he talked about, and I'm gonna read the quote here. And this is about players, younger players specifically. And he didn't mention any players by name here, although it branched off of a discussion, about both, Terry and Arnold and Colby Sorsdell, which are very divergent topics. So there's gonna be a learning curve for guys some guys' development and how fast they can go, but we're not gonna let any anybody hold us hostage. And this this we talked about this in the livestream yesterday a little bit, but I wanted to to go more into this. That's not going to happen. I think there's always a balance when you get into the season. There could be a player that's a tick better. He's an older player. He's a veteran player. But if you really feel like a young guy, he is learning from his mistakes and is growing, is not making the same mistake twice and you feel constant growth, at some point, it's time to push him into that position and let him go. Because in about four weeks, they'll be better and they'll continue to grow from there. That talking about players who were up and coming versus more established players who might they are what they are, but they might not offer more. And instantly, the comments singled out Terryon Arnold. And I'm not gonna say that that's wrong because Terryon has to work. He's gotta push. But my read on it was initially for a couple of different guys. One of them being Blake Miller at right tackle pushing Larry Borom. And as I said yesterday, I will be disappointed but not upset if Blake Miller isn't starting by the end of September. In fact, I'd I'd like to see him win the job outright this summer, but it's not gonna be just handed to him. But I think this is a great example of what Campbell was talking about here. And that Larry Borom is a quality capable veteran. You know what you're getting from him, from his years in Miami. You also know what you're not getting from him after, you know, the this is, in fact, the guy who was responsible for the Hutch rule and joint practices last year. I will point out, and Miami fans don't like to hear this, although they do now, because now they hate McDaniel, they never gave him tight end help. They never gave him formational help. They never shifted blocking to help. Like just, they were a terribly coached team. I I I will reiterate it because I do think it's important. The Lions could not have made a worse hire this off season than Mike McDaniel, and they dodged that bullet very successfully. And we're gonna talk about that with the the next part when he's talking about Kafka and and David Shaw a little bit, and Drew Petzing, all the new additions to the offensive staff who I I I'm very happy about. But back to this, Blake Miller has training wheels on, and those training wheels are Larry Borom. And until he definitively beats him out, that's fine. I thought that the fact that Boran was working at left tackle with the second team offense says a lot about where the lions see him. He is your effective Dan Skipper replacement as o t three.

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Speaker 0: He'll be better than Dan Skipper. No not no offense to Skip. None intended here. But Skip was always better as a six offensive lineman than playing as a tackle or a guard in a emergency starting role. He did he did he did the best he could. He fought. He was pugnacious, literally. But skill wise, Boram's probably an upgrade. Certainly, in past protection, he will be an upgrade. And I say that, again, acknowledging that he was the the genesis of the actual last summer. I like what I've seen from his movement skills so far. He is lither in person, this year than he was a year ago. And some of that might be the organizational competence in him too. The line showed that they wanted him. And while I wasn't necessarily fond of the signing, like, I get I get, like, okay. They saw that he was gonna respond favorably to being wanted instead of being a the Miami people ripped on him forever. They're trying to coax something out there. They're trying to find something that might be there that wasn't there before. And, he he'll he will be pushed by Blake Miller. He will also push Blake Miller, and I like I like that that concept. Another one that that that immediately sprung into my mind, and some fans probably don't wanna hear this one, is Jimmy Rolder pushing Malcolm Rodriguez? Look. We all love Rodrigo. This is a Rodrigo friendly show. But at this point, he is what he is. He is a number four linebacker in a four three defense. If they're playing him as you're starting your third, like, okay. He'll help he will help you run defense. He is very limited in his coverage range. He doesn't flow sideline to sideline as well as somebody like Rolder can be. A Rolder is not there yet. He looked good in the mini camp, man. His spatial awareness was better in the two days this week that I watched him than I ever saw at Michigan in his time there. And he looks a little, I don't wanna beat the word of death, but lither here than he did up up the road in Ann Arbor. And that's one where they know what Rodrigo is. They also know what his contract's done. And if Roeder can push Rodrigo off that spot before then, they're not gonna they're not gonna wait. I'm not suggesting that Malcolm Rodriguez is a cut candidate. I I don't see that happening, in in part because of his special team's ability. But they have guys like Damon Clark in who can play that special team's role. And Rodrigo is gonna get pushed. If he's going to be a prominent part of this defense, if he's going to be the third linebacker or even the fourth linebacker, he's going to have to earn it. He's going to have to show that he can consistently, this was something that Brad talked about, you know, consistency of performance. Sorry. Dan talked about it. Consistency of performance was a very big thing in their evaluation metric this off season. You know, you might be better half the time, but if you're not better all if you're somebody who's better for part of the time but worst part of the time is going to lose out to somebody who is more consistently in the middle of that performance range. You know what you're gonna get. That seems to be an organizational shift this year with Detroit, and that is a that is a change. I understand the merits of that. I I I kinda like the guys who can spike, but I also understand that you don't wanna necessarily deal with the valleys. This is to go back to James Houston. James Houston's peaks were, yeah. Give me that. But his valleys were like, Dude, have you ever seen a football game before? Because it doesn't look like it. And they got tired of that. And this sort of is an extension of why he's not here and no longer here.

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Speaker 0: That's, an another one, and this is we talked a lot about the left guard position being an open spot. And Dan did talk about Mahogany Christian Mahogany and his experience, but he's a guy that has to level that performance out. And guys like Juice Scruggs can push him. Juice Juice's ability to play center and guard with starting experience, it feels like the fan base in general is not giving him the respect that he needs for that. Now did he do it well in Houston? Not all the time. Nope. But that that that's a battle to watch, and I think the more consistent performer there is going to win out of that. Another spot where the the young guy can push the old guy off, Keith Abney, Rak Yassin. I know Rock plays outside and we all project Abney to be a slot, but he played outside at Arizona State. Like, the the ability is there. Much more of an Amiek Robertson replacement. And Amiek, while he thrived sometimes, most of the time, inside, you go back to when he came to Detroit, he was an undersized outside corner. That's that's where he was at his best with the Raiders. He was not good in the slot there. He showed that he could be in Detroit, and I do think that we will miss him from time to time. We will certainly miss his feist, but Abney brings that too. It could also be Roger McCreery as a newcomer who had one really bad day of mini camp and one really good day of mini camp. If ABNY is more consistent, he does have more long term upside. He is younger. You can do things with that. So I think that that that's sort of the positions that we're looking at here. Defensive end, you know, the that that that's gonna be a fun battle. We'll we'll talk about that some other time. I wanna also get into the comments about Kafka because there's been a lot of people wondering aloud, and this this is almost more from the outside of Detroit because there's a lot of people that are wondering why is he in Detroit? Couldn't he have done a better gotten a better, higher profile gig elsewhere? And, also, what is it what exactly is he going to do? And Dan enlightened us on this, and I'm gonna have to break the reading glasses out for this one. And he's talking about, what he is on what he has liked about the addition of Lions Pass game coordinator, Mike Kafka, and what his role entails. I'm reading this from the transcript that the Lions send out. Excuse me. Well, I think there's a lot. First of all, he's been a great addition for us. I know what that is when you go from where he's been. And he talked about, how he was an interim head coach and had to humble himself coming here to be a coordinator, because Dan did that when he left Miami and bounced to New Orleans. As far as what's going on in in Detroit, he's a thinker. He listens. He's gonna do exactly what Drew Petzing wants done, what I want done. He's good with the players, and then a lot of it, he's just finding his way too. Right? You're kind of the new guy, so you're getting a feel hold of the other coaches around you, which has grown and developed. He fits right in. And then with players too, golf, I think in regards to because he and David Shaw are both kind of in that. Think a lot of advanced scouting, division opponents, what's coming next down the road, two, three weeks, and then give us your ideas. That's sort of where John Morton wound up after he was defrocked as your offensive coordinator a year ago. Being more having more guys in Shaw and Kafka who have considerable offensive experience. And by the way, in in somewhat different systems. And and Dan talked about how Kafka was known for, you know, getting the deep ball going with the Giants last year. And that's not something that had been there before under Brian Daboll. That's certainly an interesting wrinkle that maybe Kafka can look ahead to when you're playing when you've got opponents stacked on top of one another, he can help install game plans for future opponents and work on things that maybe wrinkles that maybe Drew Petzing doesn't have time to see. The different sets of eyes. I really, really like the idea here of having a lot of different eyes from similar systems, but also divergent coaching backgrounds. And the different sets of eyes, I love that. I really do. I think that's a massive asset. Just in watching the coaching interactions on the field, on the practice field, these guys like each other. Like, you can see like, with Morton, there was always a tension, not always a positive because I wanna hearken back to Ben Johnson for a second. With Ben Johnson, there was always tension, but a lot of it was was positive. It was focused tension. It was intentional tension that was designed to coax things out of players and or their offensive system. And that was not the tension that was there with John Morton, unfortunately. And I say, I think it's getting more back to that more of a positive creation of tension. I hope that makes sense. Keep throwing ashen out there for he likes to say that, my favorite Canadian in the podcast. And he did talk about the deep ball as well, but he also talked about how and this is I'm quoting Dan here. I think a lot of that comes with certainly that's I think everybody would love the deep ball. If you feel like you've got a one on one and you get really good at it, you wanna feel like you can maximize those opportunities. Hello, J Mo. Fantasy draft. Yeah. T'esla too for that matter. T'esla worked a lot of downfield routes this week. I think you're gonna see more of him as a down the field weapon with some size and the ability to go and high point a contested catch throw on, let's say let's say it's third and 11. I think we're gonna be a lot better this year at getting first off, I I know this from Drew Petzing from his days in Cleveland where I I covered him coaching. And one of the things that Kevin Stefanski, who was the head coach at that time, was really good at, if it's third and nine, your routes go 10 yards. Your routes don't go seven, and then you count on the guy to pick it up. And that's kind of what we've had. That that was a that was a look. We'll go Ben Johnson, as great as he was, he had his flaws. That was one of them. We complained about that a lot when he was here. It feels like that was almost more of a Dan Campbell thing though because last year, when Dan took over the offense, that was still a problem. I think that's gonna be one of the things that we notice is different this year, That on third and six, they're not gonna just gonna throw the ball three yards on a slant to Amman Rasey Brown and, you know, go gain it, go break a tackle, go make something happen. I think the scheme will create more yards and more conversions. That at least that that's the hope, man. And that comes from the coaching backgrounds. So now Dan Dan had a lot of fun. He's still focused. It's still all business, but he he cracked a couple smiles. He did crack a joke when he was asked, you know, what players have really stood out to the to you this year as guys who have who have, you know, shown improvement, and he immediately went with Jake Bates and Jack Fox. And now both of them had phenomenal mini cast. I I I don't wanna, like, like, make a a massive deal, but Jack Fox, man, holy crap. The punting display he put on in the in Wednesday's practice, like, wow. Now he did not have his best year last year. I think there's maybe something that he's trying to get back at that. Look. He would look. He was still fine. There's no need to bring competition in. There I'm not suggesting in any way that Jack Fox is not an elite punter, but he wasn't quite as good last year as he had been the year before. It's nice to see him get back to that and get back to being the all pro that we love. That's that that's a nice little sign. We're gonna call that a show. We will have a show with Emery Hunt, talking about the new additions from the UFL tomorrow. Wallace can talk a little bit about, maybe the CFL, and why players might not be coming down as much as they used to. And, I I I think you'll enjoy that conversation. I hope you do. We'll talk about, Tariq Black and, lucky Jackson, and the the newcomers. So we'll we'll we'll get to that. Until then, Jeff Rizzo signing up. Be good to one another, everybody.