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Speaker 2: Hey, everyone. Jeff Risen here with your daily DLP. It is Friday, July 17. Happy seven one seven day. Hopefully, we can get outside today and breathe a little bit because, the air was brutal on Thursday. It was awful. My eyes are still recovering somewhat. We are getting into training camp because training camp is coming very soon. We're a little over a week away. The rookies report on the twenty fifth. And while we don't have any rookies that are gonna be in this one, we are gonna preview today the only position battle for a starting spot on the offense. Now, technically, Blake Miller and Larry Borham are going to have a battle for the right tackle spot, but we know it's gonna be Blake Miller sooner than later, if not right away. But who's gonna be the left guard on the Detroit Lions in 2026? That is subject to debate and subject to a camp battle, and that's what we're gonna talk about today. So we have and it's weird because we do have the returning starter coming back in Christian Mahogany. He is in fact coming back. And he should be in pencil anyways as the starting left guard. But two years in, lot of missed time, and not a lot of proven well, how what's the best way to say it? He hasn't earned the right to not be challenged as a starter. That that's beyond like, there's no question that that he needs to to play better, more consistently to win the job. And I have got the the Pro Football Focus scores, and this is the profile from last year for Christian Mahogany. And for those of you who are watching on YouTube or wherever you might watch it, you can see it very clear here. If not if you're on the audio only version first off, thank you. Love the audio only version folks. Whether you're on Spotify or Apple or whatever. I'll do a quick review of it for you. So last year, Christian Mahogany got was the week one starter. Started through week nine. That includes the week eight by week when he got injured in week nine. And then came back late in the season. He did not have a great year. Just under 700 snaps. He allowed six sacks. Four of those came in the final two weeks which was when he came back after he had been injured and clearly couldn't move, and, the Steelers, exploited that, especially the Bears also did in the finale. He actually had a decent week enough against the Vikings sandwiched in between those. Pass block grade, 40.7. That's not good enough. There are four games there three games there that are below 30. That's the dark red that you see. That is weeks six, sixteen, and 18. That's Kansas City, Pittsburgh, and Chicago. What do all of those teams have in common? They like the blitz. And that was a problem for mahogany as a rookie, and it was also a problem last year. Run blocking actually had a couple of really nice games in the middle of the season. Cincinnati and and Kansas City, which are teams, again, that that are more linebacker centric. Although, Chris Jones, obviously, with with the Chiefs is, a good one. Did he play in that game? I don't even remember. They all blur together. Honestly, they really do. But had a couple of very strong games, three games in a row. You know, week five, eighty five point nine overall. Week six, eighty five point one overall. Week seven against Tampa Bay, 66 overall. That's certainly a good enough score for a starter. Those were his three best games. Two of his three worst games came at the end of the season. He did not have a good week against Cleveland. Cleveland's defense, Jim Schwartz. Very good defense. He wound up facing off against Mason Graham some. Wanna facing off against Miles Garrett a little bit. So, yeah. Allowed 27 pressures on the season. Past blocking efficiency of 95.8. That's not very good. That's needs to be better. If you look back to his rookie season where he only played in a handful of games, a 144 snaps, allowed one sack, only four pressures, 96.8 better pass blocking efficiency, but the overall grade, that's more promising. Run blocking grade then, 91.1. Offense grade, 91.5. That's that's incredibly promising. I can tell you that the Lions have not forgotten about that rookie performance. Again, it's late in the year. He missed a lot of time due to an illness. He had mono throughout the the the summer season. Didn't get activated until late. If that Christy Mahogany walks through the door, my god. This lion's lion's gonna be a monster. I'm not expecting that. And I say that as someone who has been probably Mahogany's biggest advocate in the Lions media. Make no secret about that. But he's got he's got work to do. He's gotta prove it. Because other than that three week period in the middle of last season, he didn't look good. Didn't look like a starter. And now the Lions have viable competition for him as starter. Let's get to the next guy. The most prominent one is Juice Scruggs, acquired in the Dave Montgomery deal from Houston, has starting experience at both center and left guard. Last season, you see his his numbers here from the Texans, And you see why the Texans got rid of him, and we're sad about including him in the David Montgomery deal. One game over 62. You go San Francisco, a 63. Overall grade, 45. Pass blocking grade, 57.7. He allowed no sacks. Did allow 11 pressures. A 97.3 pass rush efficiency. Had one really bad snap against the titans in week 11, playing right guard. He played one snap and a lot of pressure on it. It's sort of weighs things down when you don't. He only played three ninety one snaps last year. Again, wound up losing his starting gig as a he was their starting left guard for a little bit. Lost it in camp, regained it briefly when they had some shuffling, and then went back to being their top interior reserve. If you go back and look at the bottom here, the the 2024 season he was a full time starter at center and left guard and did okay. Nothing to write home about there. 2023 as a rookie, second rounder, probably got thrust into action a little bit more than he wanted to be. Did about nine sacks in those two seasons. Most of those came playing guard. He was actually better at center than he was at guard. And when the Lions acquired him, the thought was, okay, this is going to be our top interior reserve because he has starting experience really in all three interior positions. I will say from watching the Texas, and I do watch the Texas weekly, that I like that team. I live there. Actually, in a complete coincidental aside, I moved back to Michigan from Houston on this day in 2013, and covered the Texans for five years with the Wires. So, I'm still very close to that team. I've watched all their snaps. I've watched Scruggs a lot. He is at his best at center. That doesn't mean that he's not going to compete against Mahogany for the starting left guard position though. Biggest thing with him is once he sets, he doesn't reset well, and that's something he's gotta work on. It he is similar in that regard to, Kingsley Iguacan, who we've had in Detroit as a backup center slash guard, competitive guy for a couple of of seasons. They're similar. Now Iguacan was undrafted out of Florida. Scruggs was a second rounder out of Penn State. Yeah. They're walking in I believe he's in Cleveland now. It's where he was last year. I don't know if he stayed there. Honestly, they've overhauled their entire line. So who knows? But Scruggs is gonna compete. I will predict before this whole thing starts, before training camp starts, that he's gonna wind up being our top interior reserve and we'll make the team. But he's got competition for that role too, and that's because we're gonna bring up the last guy and this is a guy that we don't talk enough about in Lions Lane and I'm guilty of this too. That's Ben Barch. And you look at the scores here and those of you watching on the video, you're like, Oh, there's some green! Wow! That's good. Didn't see a lot of green with, with mahogany or especially Scruggs. Don't think there's any green on Scruggs thing. But you go to the side to the bottom, and I got a season grades here from when he played in San Francisco and also in Jacksonville. And what stands out doesn't play a lot. Despite being the starting left guard in weeks one and two last year, he got hurt. And San Francisco played very well in those games, though, by the way. Did not allow a sack all season, but was healthy for just 200 snaps. All of it at left guard. Not all of it at left guard. A couple five snaps at right guard. And that's sort of been the story with him. He's a good player when he's healthy, but dude makes Anna's rake straw look durable. I mean, look at these 65 snaps in 2024. Two forty in 2023. Two ninety three in 2022. 2021 for the Jaguars was their primary starting right guard while he was healthy. Did okay. Allowed three sacks at a, pass blocking efficiency of 96.9. That's a little bit better than Mahogany. It's still not great. You like to see 97 closer to 98 would be great. 97.8 last year. Again, played very well when he was on the field. That's just been the story of his career. Has one season where he's played more than 300 and forties with 300 snaps. This is Natanee Muti. Like, who? Yeah. He was in Lions Camp for a couple years. And two years ago, when Mahogany was a rookie, was taking first team reps after the first week of training camp. And then he got hurt, which as any Raiders fan can tell you and as anybody who followed his career at Fresno State can tell you, was bound to happen. And that's the worry with Ben Barch. He said he might wind up being the most talented, but can you count on him to stay on the field? His history, as you see here, as I can tell you here, says no you can't. And that's a risky proposition, especially for a lion scene that has been burned badly by oft injured but talented veterans. Whether it's Marcus Davenport. You go back to, oh god. Who's the corner from the forty niners? Emmanuel Mosley. We have Peyton Turner now. We'll talk about him when we're previewing the edges, but, he's he's he's catnip, man. And that's sort of where Barch falls into the the line here as a guy who's who's been hurt a lot, but when he's been on the field looks really good. I don't know if he's gonna stay healthy. I don't know how the lions are gonna view the risk versus reward with him, but he is certainly somebody that you have to know, going into the battle. I'd be remiss if I didn't bring up Miles Frasier. Chris and I talked about him on the live show on Wednesday night. Nobody really knows what the plan is for Miles Frasier yet. And I will say in talking to people that know him earlier this off season, that's before mini camp. I don't think he knows. So he will be one of the great enigmas of Lions training camp, Miles Frasier. Is he gonna be a tackle? Is he gonna be a guard? Is it are they gonna let him compete to start? Is he going to be viewed as a reserve that they bring along? Because much like Mahogany, he missed most of his rookie season, because he he was out with a knee injury. He didn't really get that valuable practice time and training camp time preseason time. So he is a wild card to watch. Giovanni Manu has been tried at guard.

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Speaker 2: I don't know what the plan is there either. Well, I I should say it. I think the plan is to try to find anywhere that he can play at an NFL practice squad level, and he hasn't been there yet. But if it's at guard or if it's if he's the Dan Skipper replacement as the extra tackle, you know, defacto blocking tight end. Okay? I think that's probably more likely than him playing guard, but you because he was mentioned specifically by Dan Campbell as a potential guard solution during the mini camp press conferences. Got thrown in the in the into the lump there. Who else is there? Look at the roster here from mini camp. Mason Miller, undrafted free agent last year. He is he he did play tackle at, at North Dakota State. He is a guard. He is he is one of the there are two guys listed at guard only on this sheet. Actually, he's the only one listed as guard only, and that's Mason Miller, even though he was a tackle in college. He he that means he's converting to tech to guard. Most of these guys, as you can see here, I will hold it up, are listed as o line or tackle. McLaughlin and Mays are centers. I agree that South McLaughlin is a center only. He's just he's he's not built to be a guard. But Michael Neece is in there coming back for another season. Feels like he's got an uphill battle to make it, but he can't rule them out because he's been on the team. He's a good dude. They like him. Very coachable. Very very comfortable practice squad player who can elevate up and back up all three interior positions if needed. Then there's Melvin Priestley who is listed as an offensive lineman. He's from Illinois, undrafted rookie, six foot four, three hundred and five. I'll be honest. I didn't catch Priestley in mini camp. They weren't in pads, so I didn't really watch it. The lines until they're in pads, I don't worry too much about the lines. He's he's looking at a long shot, but he's got a shot. And that's that's pretty much your battle. Colby Sorestle, also in the battle. We're kind of figuring out what Colby Zorstel is. Is he going to be a guard, tackle? He's talked about playing center some. Could he be the super sub? Is he competing with Ben Barch for that role? Is he competing with Juice Scruggs for that role? Or can they both do it? Is he the replacement for Coyote Alsheka who's now gone? Who was sort of that super sub who could play tackle or guard as a backup? You know, maybe Manu's competing in with that. But I don't think he's competing for a starting spot. Maybe he is. I don't know. We'll see. But for the starting left guard spot, my money is on Christian Mahogany. But, I work in sports media. I don't make a lot of money, so I don't have a lot of money to put on it. But he is certainly the clubhouse leader going into training camp, but I will tell you that this this permeates whenever you talk to any of the coaches whether it's, you know, as they're walking off the practice field, and we get to walk and talk with them for a little bit or in their press conferences. Their eyes and minds are open and willing to be changed if it's for the good of the team. They are not locked in. As as Dan Campbell said, we will not be held hostage. There's a number of different ways that you can interpret that, but one of the ones one of the ways that I interpreted it sitting in the room when he said it was that just because Krish Mahogany was a starter last year doesn't mean he's a starter this year. Just because to to go to a different position, just because Malcolm Rodriguez has been here for a while, doesn't mean he's a lock to stay for a while. He's gotta earn it. They brought Jimmy Rolder in. They brought the one Clark in. Like, there there's competition there. Just because Tom Kennedy is the longest tenured lion, doesn't mean he's gonna make it again. Doesn't mean he won't either. But that's what that phrase phrasing to me interpreted. So we'll see how that goes. Y'all, it's Friday. I've talked to you about left guards for twenty minutes. You've earned a good weekend. Enjoy it. I'll be back with you probably not on Saturday, but I will have a show for you on Sunday. Until then, Jeff Rizzo signing out. Be good to one another everybody.